To differentiate on the customer service experience, retailers will augment existing POS with new digital technologies.
With so much of the pathway-to-purchase now being influenced by digital, many POS systems as they exist today limit retailers from providing a seamless experience across all of their customer touch points. Older POS systems are typically difficult to upgrade or enhance, and on their own hinder agile innovation. In 2016, retailers will need to explore new technologies to supplement their existing POS in order to gain maximum visibility across inventory, orders, customers, and products. Emerging mobile technologies show the potential to deliver robust capabilities like assisted selling, new services (e.g. in-store entertainment) to enhance the in-store customer experience/value, and quick and simple transactions to build loyalty and differentiation.
This post is part of Capgemini’s 2016 retail trends and strategies blog series. Read the rest of the articles in the series:
- 2016 Retail Trend 1: The Social Media Balancing Act
- 2016 Retail Trend 2: Merging Online/Mobile/Physical Store Experiences
- 2016 Retail Trend 3: The Empowered Store Associate
- 2016 Retail Trend 4: Optimized and Predictive Supply Chains
- 2016 Retail Trend 6: The Channel Agnostic Marketer
Lindsey Mazza is a Senior Manager in the North American Supply Chain Technologies practice at Capgemini. She can be reached at lindsey.mazza@capgemini.com. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
