WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

L'Oréal is bringing its artificial intelligence (AI) technology to Amazon, which for the first time will give its mobile shoppers a chance to virtually try on makeup before buying. ModiFace, the developer of technology for the beauty industry that L'Oréal acquired last year, is providing digital demonstrations of lipstick shades using augmented reality (AR), according to a company announcement.

The retail industry is rewriting the laws of physics. Change is coming at an ever faster rate each year and 2030 will be upon us before we know it. Explore the world in 2030 and the future of retail 2030.  

Amazon’s business model for the device is to make deliveries within 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from a company warehouse and to reach customers within 30 minutes. It can carry packages weighing as much as five pounds. More than 80% of packages sold by the retail behemoth are within that weight limit, Kimchi said.

They indicate that consumers' mobile phones will soon become remote controls for the commercial exploration of the physical world, or, better said, they will become tools to unlock Easter eggs within shopping experiences that will vary from one individual to the next.

“We chose right from the very start to not hide the technology,” Hanrahan explained.

There are many business growth strategies out there, but there’s one area where nearly every business has room to improve: the mobile site speed.

Beyond the world of email marketing in the wider world of business, the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on productivity and employment has risen to prominence in the last two plus years as more affordable systems have become available from vendors. This has naturally prompted marketers to review the potential marketing applications of AI. To answer this question, in our guide to marketing applications of AI , Smart Insights has reviewed the opportunities and tools for AI across the customer lifecycle. This report highlights the critical trends and techniques that will help you transform your brand-customer relationships using the most powerful channel in your marketing mix: email!

It’s an incredibly exciting time to be working in the retail industry. Ten years from now, consumers will look back and say: “Did shopping really look like that in 2019?”

Amazon quietly rolled out Amazon Showroom, a tool that lets you place furniture in a virtual living room, making online furniture shopping more visual.

Online or offline: These cannot be the only options for consumers. See how Alibaba is transforming traditional retail with a complete digitization of commerce.

Key Findings

1. Digital commerce innovators are moving beyond the traditional commerce site, and even mobile, to focus on emerging channels such as conversational interfaces.
2. New business models, such as subscription-based ordering and enterprise marketplaces, enable sellers to generate new revenue streams and focus on customer outcomes.
3. AI is playing a big role in digital commerce, improving customer experience, increasing revenue, reducing costs, and driving double-digit improvement in related metrics.
4. Customer-facing features continue to be the primary selection criteria for commerce platforms. However, agility, ease of deployment, flexibility to update content and deliver new features, and ability to scale are also crucial aspects of a commerce ecosystem.

In our 27-criteria evaluation of product information management (PIM) providers, we identified the 10 most significant ones — Agility Multichannel, Contentserv, EnterWorks, IBM, Informatica, inRiver, Riversand, Salsify, SAP, and Stibo Systems — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps digital business professionals make the right choice.

Retailers at the Future Stores event in Seattle had a lot to say about where they thought the future of the store is headed. Here are some of the top takeaways.

IoT has paved the way for brands to use connected devices in their physical spaces too. Learn how location-based brands can invest in technology-rich locations that raise the bar for customer experience.

• Of participating members, an average of one-quarter of total revenue comes through digital commerce channels.
• Note: Most participants work in organizations that sell to both B2B and B2C audiences.
• Improving customer satisfaction, innovation/transformation of the business, and reducing costs via automation of sales processes and customer self-service buying were cited as key reasons for embracing digital commerce.
• Delivering the desired customer experience was cited as the most critical challenge for digital commerce. Consistency in serving customers across all sales channels and justifying IT spending based on current ROI were also highlighted as key barriers.
• A majority (63%) considered digital commerce as a critical and natural progression to a digital business strategy.

The Warehouse est le premier entrepôt destiné aux startups pour créer la supply chain du futur. Créé par Cdiscount, ce lieu d’innovation propose un programme d’accompagnement de 6 mois, alliant à la fois du mentoring pour challenger la stratégie des startups, mais également des ateliers de codesign avec les utilisateurs experts de leur métier, afin de contextualiser les solutions logistiques des startups sélectionnées.

Amazon is getting into more brick-and-mortar stores. While the retail giant purchased Whole Foods last year, Amazon had previously opened up a convenience store for employees under its own brand in Seattle in 2016.

Under the Sobeys deal, the two companies will develop a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Toronto using Ocado's grid and robots network and will also consider developing more centers in dense urban areas.

Taiwanese e-commerce platform OwlTing wants to change the way consumers think about their food. This year, it launched the world’s first blockchain-based app for tracing food products — including pork. And the process is pretty simple: by scanning a sticker on a slab of pork, OwlTing customers can quickly access information about everything from a piglet’s date of birth, to the vaccines it received before its slaughter. There’s a lot more to blockchain technology than learning obscure facts about a pork chop, however. For producers, using blockchain-based technologies to trace food through processing and shipping means that they might be able to avoid widespread food waste should a contamination arise — and even save lives. And it is not just small companies that are interested in this technology. The largest retailer in the world, Walmart recently partnered with IBM to develop their own pilot blockchain system. VICE News Tonight visited Taiwan to see how blockchain is affecting pork production, and then to Walmart to find out why the company thinks consumers are going to benefit from this technology.

Why are companies so intent on using technology to track our behavior? Our actions reveal what we desire, how we shop, and why we buy. Retailers can now learn so much more about shopper behavior than ever before, and while these “big data” applications create concerns about privacy, the detailed data can be used to design stores, product offerings and promotions that connect with our interests, speed up the shopping process, and help us find items we will buy. 

The robots themselves are produced by California-based Bossa Nova Robotics, and are about two-feet tall with an extendable tower containing lights and sensors for scanning shelves. They sit in recharging stations in the store until a human employee gives them a “mission” — e.g. checking a particular aisle to see what needs re-stocking. The robots are supposed to save workers’ time, but Walmart says it will also use the data they collect to improve efficiency nationwide.

Picking stuff up and putting it away sounds like child's play, but to online retailer Amazon.com, it is a high-tech, high-stakes game. This year, contestants competed in timed stowing and picking operations -- simple enough for humans yet nearly impossible for robots to perform reliably. For stowing, each robot was rated on how efficiently it could pick up items and put them on a shelf. In the picking phase, the robots had to put specified items into the proper boxes. The top eight advanced to the final round.

Amazon has plans to drop off packages directly into shoppers' homes. Delivery associates are told to ring a doorbell or knock when they arrive at someone’s house. If no one greets them, they press ‘unlock’ in a mobile app, and Amazon checks its systems in an instant to make sure the right associate and package are present. The camera then streams video to the customer who remotely can watch the in-home delivery take place. The associate cannot proceed with other trips until the home is again locked.