Looking ahead to Retail Technology Show
While there are undoubted challenges in the retail sector right now there are still many opportunities for growth and this is increasingly being fuelled by the careful harnessing of technology including AI of course.
Such thinking came out clearly from the panel discussion held on the Press Day hosted by the Retail Technology Show, which runs April 22 & 23. Meriel Neighbour, head of technology delivery & transformation at River Island, suggested: “It’s now all about growth for us, which involves identifying what customers want and keeping the product offer fresh. How do we harness technology better and use AI for this?”
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She cites how AI has been used for customer service calls and has reduced the number of calls reaching the team by 80%. Yathu Kanagaratnam, head of technology & AI strategy at Goddiva, has also been very active with AI initiatives. These have included using agentic AI to provide recommendations based on more personal requirements, which has almost doubled the level of conversion.
He has also developed a system to reduce in-store theft that has been so successful he is looking to sell it to other retailers. And tech is being used to battle the level of returns at Goddiva, which reached a hefty 80% on the back of free delivery and returns.
“With an in-house built AI solution we targeted a reduction of 4-5% by giving customers options such as uploading an image of themselves to improve sizing…and the AI shows them what the product looks like on them. It has helped reduce returns to 72%, which is huge for our total revenue,” says Kanagaratnam.
Massively reduced costs
He calculates that such a solution would have cost £50,000 to build but with AI [coding capabilities] it cost just £5,000. For Will Lockie, global digital director at Noble Panacea, applications that would have taken three weeks to code can now be completed in only two days.
Jim Hingston, digital & technology director at Azzurri Group – that runs the Zizzi and ASK chains, has been enjoying the same positive experiences as he explains that he has undertaken a re-platforming that would have taken double the time a year ago.
It is not just AI that is making life potentially easier for retailers and hospitality firms because Ana Machado Da Silva, VP of digital product at Pentland Brands, says she has also found advantages in platforms like Shopify that provide great flexibility.
“There are apps you can pay for by the month and then simply switch them off if you do not like them. Adding a ‘Wishlist’ would have taken six months to build before but now it can be done in a matter of weeks. As this technology gets cheaper then we can spend more on things like marketing and service,” she says.
Transformational AI yet to come
However, Hingston is cautious and has some reservations about the capabilities of AI and other technologies: “Some solutions don’t match the hype. Agencies look to sell us AI things that solve everything but often they are not there yet. The concepts are good but transformational things have not landed yet.”
He also suggests that hospitality is a simple business and that he believes technology should be invisible to the customer: “When we look at implementing it, we ask if it is enhancing the customer experience. We have order & pay at table, which is [just] 10% of sales. We are definitely seeing more tech being switched off. Leon is ripping out kiosks. The tech just needs to be there as a support.”
Lockie agrees: “It’s just about personal service in-store.” And that this can be improved through providing a better customer experience by having employees better informed. This can come from being fitted with ear pieces that give them connectivity into systems that can feed them information in real-time, which can then be conveyed to the customer.
Value of people in-store
Such initiatives that seek to boost the personal experience in-store very much revolve around the people on the shop floor, according to Neighbour, who says: “Sales assistants will need re-training. JD Sports, EE and Lego are [among the retailers] creating experience stores to get people engaged with their products. Younger generations coming through want that experience.” This requires engaged store employees.
This trend has also been noted by Kanagaratnam who dismisses the use of things like smart mirrors in stores because he believes younger audiences increasingly want to chat to humans and hear their product suggestions: “They are tired of too much technology and watching videos. It’s about a balance. Where we are installing tech in-store is to reduce shoplifting!”
Meanwhile, in the online channel Neighbour reckons retailers are likely to see voice interactions become more important, with customers being able to ask questions about products and the relevant recommended outfits being visually constructed. This could have a big impact not only on clothing but also furniture such as sofas.
Owning the data
When such interactions take place through the likes of ChatGPT or other AI-powered chatbots and there are in-conversation purchases (shop-throughs) then it prompts some serious questions from Neighbour about who owns the customer: “Where does the data go? I want to understand how I can get to the data and own it so I can do things post-purchase. There’s a debate to be had about this.”
Intermediaries inserting themselves between the merchant and the customer is not a new thing for the hospitality industry as Hingston cites the delivery aggregators who are now ingrained in the industry but do not want to share data with the restaurant owners. “We have no ownership,” he argues.
There are times when retailers and hospitality should themselves deal with data more sensibly, especially during its collection, with Giles Smith, former digital director at Burberry and Selfridges, suggesting that they should dial back their constant desire for customer feedback.
Often this can be requesting reviews on even the most mundane of items that have been purchased. This is more likely to annoy the customer than elicit any valuable insight from the data. He also cites the example of hotels that send multiple emails requesting online check-in when it is not really solving a problem and check-in in-person at the hotel is really not a problem or hardship for the customer.
