USI | Smart Retail Manufacturing: How can it enhance operations in a few ways?

10/04/2021

Smart Retail Manufacturing: How can it enhance operations in a few ways?

The drastic shift to everything online was due, but the pandemic-stricken world has only accelerated the process. But the commendable rise of e-commerce websites doesn't overshadow the need of a consumer to go into a physical store, see, touch, and verify products in person, and were asking a store associate for their advice remains of utmost importance. Therefore, the importance of consumer experience in the store stands out in such future trends. Point-of-Sale(POS) system would be the first touchpoint whoever walked into the store.

Smart handheld devices along with 5G will have far-reaching impacts for multiple industries, including retail. The most important is how these advanced functions are integrated with the POS system to fully optimize the consumer experience.

POS technology concentrated more on consumer empowerment rather than just playing its transactional role. digital payments services combine with the POS system, such as Apple Pay and Alipay, put choice and control in the customers’ hands and make it a seamless part of their lives, which further enhances its role as valuable touchpoints that fit at the heart of the entire experience of retail that the consumer has.

Here's how POS is helping transform the customer experience while evolving it for the better.

Contactless Technology – The global pandemic of Covid-19 has accelerated the growth, adoption, and development of contactless technology at a large scale. Under this circumstance, the contactless payments are growing as customers are worried about how the physical currency may spread the dreadful virus.

USI joined hands with Qualcomm and came up with iOrder, an Android mobile POS with built-in EMV payment functions powered by the high-performance and secured chip of Maxim Integrated and is capable of recording, tracking consumer's orders, and executing EMV transactions within a secure environment. iOrder puts the power of transaction in the consumer's hand while providing services like requesting services, taking orders, payment at the table.

Enabling POS on the consumer's device – Retailers are still exploring the option of making POS available on the consumer's device such as their smartphone or tablet computers. To live up to the consumer's expectation of interaction in the retail environment without having to wait in long queues and provide them with a checkout-free payment option. Using the app or software terminal, the consumer can even create a shopping list ahead of time and check if the department store has its stock of the goods. When the consumer is on the premises, they navigate through the aisle, scan food items for their nutrients and allergens, and sustainability information to know whether a certain packaging is recyclable or not.
Customizing the experience – In a survey conducted by Accenture, 91% of consumers said they tend to shop with businesses that know them and give offers and suggestions that are relevant to them. Today, we can combine online sales with offline retail while integrating cloud computing, modern logistics, and big data to analyze consumer's data and figure out their choice and preferences through big data.

Using machine learning and big data, you can now identify the products a consumer would want to buy shortly based on their old buying pattern. Dynamic and flexible promotions which are hyper-customized will be the norm shortly. This will help when a customer scans a product; they are automatically directed towards some item they usually buy which is on offer in the same store but a different aisle. Or, if they put up their dietary or nutritional requirements along with their health goals, they could have alerts and guidance pop up on their device as they shop.

Cloud-based technology – Cloud-based technology is widely adopted by retailers as retail employees need to get their hands on sales or store data/transactions from remote locations. Retailers also need this technology to integrate transaction, customer, and inventory data all under one roof. The data collected by this technology help optimize store and inventory management, creating offers and discounts that might grab the consumer's attention, all while delivering a customized experience to the customer.

At USI, we're fully aware of IoT, 5G, and smart handheld devices' possibilities in the retail industry. Thus, we equip the POS with smart handheld devices, and 5G modules as well if the client needed. These strengthened pieces of equipment could effectively improve the abilities in the POS systems without compromising the quality. Consumer habits are changing rapidly, and you will need the abilities above integrated into a cloud-based POS to keeps you ahead of the competition.