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The 11,000-year-old retail industry has evolved over time with various technological advances. Take for example the bursting of dot-coms: consumers can access a virtual store to buy products and services at the click of a button. But this does not mean that retail stores have not been "transformed" as they account for over 90% of retail sales. Retail stores use a mix of marketing and technology like the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and so on. To simplify the supply chain and inventory management, accelerate the processing of cross-border payments, optimize customer loyalty programs and manage customer data repositories.
The retail sector is keeping up with the major technological advances to improve itself and provide consumers with better customer experiences. Such an important technological advance that has been adopted is by far the most disruptive of all: Blockchain – a distributed register technology.
Blockchain is a revolutionary technology that has shocked industries beyond the virtual finance market. Indeed, blockchain technology should achieve critical adoption by 2020 and become generally accepted by consumers by 2025. As for the retail market, blockchain technology has intrinsic applications to back-end processes. According to a survey, blockchain applications in retail can improve efficiency anywhere from 40% to 60%. But here's the big question: how does this affect the client's experience and buying behavior?
Behavior to the customer's purchase and experience in retail sale
The customer experience is starting to become an important metric of the North Star for the retail sector. KPGM, in its Global Retail Trends Report 2018, stated that some of the major glocal trends that must be present in any retailer's toolbox are:
Capitalize on the customer's experience
Resizing AI-based operations
Involving the conscious and aware consumer
Adapt to changing customer expectations
Redefining marketing to adapt to the West and the East.
Customer experience is an integral part of the retail sector in which we are introducing the economics of experience. Traditionally, the unit of measurement for retail performance has been "sales per square foot"; however, the modus operandi is changing towards the improvement of experience, and therefore "experience per square foot" becomes the new and improved metric.
In addition to this, retailers must also commit to better understanding their customers. Customers are better informed about the products and services they need and have the means to make informed purchase decisions. Conferred to information, a consumer expects the services to be of an exceptional quality that is attractive.
That said, retailers need to focus on developing marketing and sales plans focused on building a positive customer experience. However, to make it happen, retailers must employ a mix of technology to enable their marketing plans to come up with an immersive customer experience. And inside this blockchain mix is an important player, and here's how it works.
Blockchain technology can be adapted to redefine customer experience by focusing on areas where the customer interacts with the product or service.
Make more personalized customer experiences.
Blockchain can help retailers incentivize customer loyalty by using tokens.
Customers can decide if their personal information can be used by resellers.
It may seem that there are not many areas in which the application of blockchain technology extends over the customer's experience. But with customer data that you collect and manage with blockchain technology, you're bound to reap huge benefits in terms of better customer relationships.
Vision Nucleus helps the adoption of Blockchain in the retail industry
It is safe to say that the conventional methods of interaction with customers followed in physical stores will soon become obsolete. Retailers need to serve consumers of an economy based on experience with the help of blockchain technology. Consumers expect a personalized shopping experience in a workshop, which requires the retailer to access unprecedented customer intelligence. This was a privilege only for e-tailers until Nucleus Vision launched its IoT and Blockchain customer identification platform.
The unique Nucleus Vision customer identification system uses three important technologies, including IoT, AI and Blockchain.
The solution does not depend on Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID or other facial recognition algorithms to identify a customer who enters a store. It depends on the mobile IDs to identify customers and accumulates their consent data.
Data is fundamental for the whole solution. Thus, Nucleus Vision used Blockchain technology to ensure security and transparency in data transition and provides complete authority to customers about their personal data.
The AI-based layer called Neuron uses customer prediction algorithms to predict customer preferences, payment capabilities, and their buying intent. When a customer enters a retail store, Nucleus Vision shares the opinions of customers with the retailer. By analyzing the insights, retailers can offer the customer an uninterrupted shopping experience with personalized offers and reward programs.
With its token-based loyalty program, Nucleus Vision has led to the application of the blockchain to a further step forward. With this program, a customer will receive nCash tokens from Nucleus Vision to give their consent to the sharing of personal data. This is an intercompany program that allows users to exchange their tokens in any of the partner companies.
Neuron also implements inventory forecasting algorithms that help retailers monitor inventory movement and identify inert products that move slowly. This will allow retailers to adopt dynamic pricing strategies, acquire information on customer preferences and effectively improve the quality of their inventory
Although IoT and artificial intelligence are disrupting every sector, including retail, which needs a data solution, they are not able to solve the problems faced by physical stores, without the knowledge of customers. The Nucleus vision addresses this problem with its unique IoT and AI solution running on a blockchain network. Its technology has found clients among some of the biggest names in the Indian retail market through partnerships and pilot projects.
Created by Abhishek Pitti, founder and CEO of Nucleus Vision
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