5 Smart Retail Technologies That Elevate Shopping Experience | Article – HSBC VisionGo
The advent of smart technologies, including AI, ML, and IoT, is changing the landscape of retail.
This article introduces a few smart retail technologies that will transform shopping:
1. Frictionless POS systems

3. Augmented shoppingGartner predicted in 2019 that by 2020, up to 100 million consumers are expected to use augmented reality in their shopping experiences. The social distancing due to COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly increased the demand for augmented reality systems. Several brands that have embraced AR long before the pandemic are offering customers an enhanced experience. Lacoste, American Apparel, and Uniqlo set up virtual showrooms and fitting rooms to allow shoppers to try products in virtual spaces. IKEA is also using AR apps to help customers determine if the furniture they want to purchase will fit and look good at their home. In the future, extended reality will eventually enable consumers to be able to share their virtual reality shopping experience with others.
4. Data science-based personalizationData science has made significant contributions to today’s personalization tools. Data science and machine learning-powered engines can make personal recommendations to customers even before they figure out what they want for themselves. According to Amazon, up to 35% of its sales are driven by its recommendation engine.
5. Staff and cashier-free storesThe 1800 square foot Amazon Go store in Seattle is the epitome of cashier-free stores. Customers can come to the store using just a credit card without any account to be created or app to be installed. Once they are in, they can enjoy shopping as they would in a normal grocery store, while an IoT-based system tracks them in a virtual cart. When the shopping is completed, all purchases will be automatically paid once the customer leaves the store. Taking it one step further, it is also possible to develop a touch-free shopping system. By scanning bar codes and QR codes, customers can receive information about desired products through a smartphone, thus, reducing direct interactions in-store.