It’s nearly here. The annual mad rush at the wee hours of the morning. The stampede into retail stores to claim really deep discounts on the latest toys, electronics, and gadgets makes headline news every year. It begins the day after Thanksgiving and is usually two of the biggest shopping days of the year. Yes, we’re talking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The events of 2020 accelerated ecommerce sales. According to Adobe Analytics (analyzing website transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers), shoppers shelled out $10.8 billion online during Cyber Monday 2020 — a single day of shopping — for a 15.1% year-over-year increase. 2020 was just the precursor to 2021, which may actually warrant use of the word “epic”, making online shopping more appealing than ever before.
For retailers, uptime is money and issues can cost thousands of dollars per minute. With infrastructure comprising complex services such as payment gateways, inventory, and mobile applications, maturing digital operations is vital for ensuring services are always on and customers get the best experience.
Internet Of Things has always played a significant role in the retail industry, stocking and warehousing. And its value is projected to rise from USD 14.5 billion in 2020 to USD 35.5 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 19.6% The term Internet of Things was coined by Kevin Ashton when he was faced with a challenge in logistics and supply chain management while he co-founded the MIT Auto-CAD centre.
It’s hard to believe we’re already talking about the return to school, but it’s set to be a big one. In fact, this year promises to be the biggest in the last five years. The National Retail Federation expects back-to-school spending to reach $37.1B , up from $33.9B last year. Back-to-college spending is also expected to rise, reaching $71B this year. This increase is buoyed by parents and students gearing up for their first in-person classes after a year of virtual learning.
With the never-ending potential of technology to disrupt everyday processes, more and more industries are deciding to adapt to one exciting area of innovation today: artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, Global Industry Analysts Inc. predicts that AI will be worth 164.03 billion GBP by 2026, and here, we look at four industries set to be disrupted by AI. Since the healthcare sector collects and greatly depends on personal data from their patients, AI will play a crucial role in data management.
Leading retailers have an ambitious vision for what data and connectivity can do in the physical shopping space, and brick-and-mortar retail is already rapidly transforming the shopping experience with technologies such as IoT, VR, AI and cloud computing.
Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we’ve discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. This week we explore the rising scope of location intelligence in improving the overall customer experience.
Power BI (Business Intelligence) is a business analytics platform/service provided by Microsoft. This service aims to provide interactive visualizations and business intelligence, enabling the end-user to create individualized reports and dashboards independently. Especially for retail businesses, Power BI helps them meet the dynamic customer demands in advance with actionable insights. Microsoft Power BI service is based on cloud service, which also offers a desktop-based interface.
