Friday, March 19, 2021

The Future of Retail in the Digital Era

Future of Retail in the Digital Era


In the recent coronavirus scenario, a major portion of retail markets has converted into e-commerce shopping spaces. The retailers have greatly shown interest in selling online, owing to the various advantages that it offers as well as the challenges faced by retailers in the digital era. Most of the technology-friendly businessmen have already set up their shops online, while those not very friendly have taken assistance from third-party providers that help them to sell their products online.

However, it has been well-established that the online and offline retail markets are interdependent; neither can survive without the other. Hence, the future of the retail market is forecasted as a deeply interlinked market, a mix of online or offline stores. Or we can put it like this — the sellers who use a mix of online and offline selling in their strategy will dominate the retail markets and succeed to build strong sustainability.  Hence, a multichannel strategy is sought, managed seamlessly with the assistance of an e-commerce multichannel software.

However, all the multichannel sellers are looking to transitioning into the omnichannel with time. Gradually, all the multichannel will convert into omnichannel strategies as the latter is a more sustainable and manageable version of the former one.

Future of Retail Post COVID: Forecasted Trends

Post-COVID, the retail market has been gaining momentum rapidly, both online and offline.

Here are some trends that are forecasted to dominate the retail markets in the coming decade:


  1. Personalisation

When it comes to retail markets, personalisation is on the rise. People are loving personalised products, whether it is purchased for self-use or for gifting, and brands are increasingly taking advantage of personalisation to lure the audience into buying their products. Personalised experience with the packaging and delivery of products has additionally proven that people are more willing to pay higher prices when they receive highly personalised services while interacting with the brand.


  1. Digitalisation

Another trend noticed in the retail markets is that of digitalisation, whether it is in terms of selling or managing. Everything is turning digital. From the internal processes to selling methods and shipping procedures, the entire businesses are transitioning into machine operated businesses very fast. All the major processes are now accomplished on machines rather than doing them manually.


  1. Automation

Heavy digitalisation calls for better management capabilities and opens the scope for heavy automation. Businesses are increasingly showing interest in business automation for processing, manufacturing, fulfilment, packaging, data entry and even managing inventories with advanced management software such as the Unicommerce eCommerce multichannel order management system.


  1. Customer Relations

The future retail markets are forecasted to show more inclination towards enhancing the brand-customer relations owing to studies and researches that prove that the customers are more likely to engage with a business or brand if they are fond of their experience with them. Hence, an attempt to improve brand-customer relations might be seen through better customer care services, mass personalisation, loyalty programs, etc.


  1. In-store Experience

The physical stores in the retail industry are suffering as they are outdated. This is a popular myth in the current world scenario. The physical stores in the current world are being lavished with advanced technology to enhance the customer experience as they shop in-store. The future of the retail stores depicts an enhanced customer experience with the application of advanced technology for assistance towards product trial, inventory display, and many more. The use of sound, lighting and visuals for a memorable in-store shopping experience is expected to revolutionise the retail markets in the coming decade.


  1. Omnichannel Approach

Owing to the fact that businesses and brands in the coming decade are more likely to follow a two-in-one selling policy, which enables them to sell online as well as offline, a complete omnichannel approach is favoured to provide a consistent, seamless purchase experience to the customers across sales channels as well as reduce the time and efforts while doing the same. More and more businesses are likely to adopt the omnichannel strategy laying more emphasis on the consistency of service, short delivery times, and great customer care services.


Unicommerce: Taking e-commerce retail brands one step closer to the future

Unicommerce has been serving 10,000+ businesses, brands, suppliers, vendors, wholesalers and retailers across the globe. The SaaS-based service provider has been simplifying, accelerating and automating e-commerce operations for their customers with advanced technology and smart cloud-based software.

The omnichannel order management software by Unicommerce allows businesses to enhance their services highly as well as manage their operations more effectively. The user-friendly interface allows for a lower training curve, while a fast implementation time assures that the business is not hampered during the implementation process.

The software solutions by Unicommerce have additionally demonstrated excellent ROI in terms of business growth, scalability, increased profit margins, decreased order fulfilment time and reduced manual labour requirement.

If you are looking for effective business solutions to step up your business strategy, Unicommerce is the way to go!

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