How IoT in retail can help improve the customer experience

When it comes to IoT in retail and how to improve customer experience in retail stores, futurists have long envisioned retail stores free of long checkout lines and empty shelves. A future where offers will magically appear just as shoppers are ready to make a decision, virtual personal shoppers will help buyers find what they need, and virtual reality images will show what clothes will look like when worn. It's a future where IoT in retail solutions are commonplace.

The retail industry today is more efficient and diverse than ever before due to IoT in retail solutions like contactless payments and virtual consultations and curbside pickup.

IoT in retail: How to improve customer experience in retail stores

The customer experience in retail is changing due in part to IoT in retail. Following is a look at how to improve customer experience in retail stores and how IoT in retail will help to play a role in driving significant innovation in three areas.

In-store experience

As the popularity of self-checkout terminals attests, most people don’t like standing in line to check out. Touchless payment, powered by either smartphones or credit cards equipped with near-field communication, can further enhance the checkout experience. By 2024, the touchless payment market is expected to grow to $1.5 trillion, according to Juniper Research.

Retailer efficiency

The use of smart cameras in retail is another way IoT can being used in retail settings. Smart cameras can help retailers monitor entire store footprints. Some retailers are already using them to moderate crowd sizes. But the technology pays off in other ways as well. Smart cameras can help retailers identify promotions that are generating high volumes of traffic or that are causing customers to linger, perhaps out of confusion. They can spot abandoned carts, flag empty shelves, cut down on shoplifting and contribute to more efficient store layouts. It's not surprising that IDC estimates the worldwide video surveillance camera market is projected to reach $44 billion by 2025.¹

Smart shelf technology is also likely to get a boost. These electronically connected shelves use weight sensors and RFID tags and readers to detect when inventories are running low, and can even catch a shoplifter in the act. Inventory management is improved, outages are reduced and customers are less likely to find shelves picked clean of the products they want.

Touchless interactions

The retail sector is expected to buy more than 2.7 million robots to be brought online between 2023 and 2027, with order fulfillment robots accounting for most of the installations. Numerous grocery chains now have robots roaming the aisles taking inventory and looking for spills and other hazards that can injure customers. In the future, they will take on more sophisticated tasks like conversing in multiple languages to help shoppers find basic items.

Interactive displays will also take on more interactions between shoppers and employees.

Flexible networks

The influx of IoT retail solutions will require upgrades to both network and data processing infrastructure. 5G networks will help eliminate the need for intrusive wiring and enable more sophisticated programming logic to be moved closer to the point of customer contact. Connected-device services will allow retailers to continually collect data from their automated field agents and use it to improve telematics, fleet efficiency, supply chain and asset tracking, among other things.

Virtualized wireless wide-area networks will permit network resources to be configured flexibly in software while routing around outages, maintaining service levels and supporting security protocols like the Payment Card Industry Security Council Standard.

Times of crisis also give birth to bursts of innovation. IoT in retail will transform the customer experience, allowing sellers to reap the benefits of improved loyalty, lower costs and business agility.

Learn more about how to improve customer experience in retail stores while driving business efficiency and how Verizon can help with automated solutions.

The author of this content is a paid contributor for Verizon.