Currently, the retail sector is a focode innovation that has many emerging technologies, such as payment contactless, trade through mobile or Internet of Things ( The Internet of Things ), which promise to transform the way in which They do business. The retail sector is, for several reasons, the most dynamic to work today, although this approach to innovation is not new: innovation and retail have always gone hand in hand.
Consider, for example, the bar code . Just 60 years ago, a group of black and white lines revolutionize promised when they were patented in 1952, the way in which retailers managed stocks and served their clients.However, not everyone seemed to agree. The most skeptical retailers preferred their selling prices continue writing hand.
It took over 20 years to convince the sellers to give an opportunity to the bar code. It was the June 26, 1974 when the first store used it to scan a product in Cincinnati, United States: a pack of gum Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit that is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Technological advances and changes in consumer behavior, strengthened by new appliances and media, still transform the retail world today. Then nine other innovations that have revolutionized the retail experience in the last 40 years or just beginning to change exposed.
This year, online shoppers will spend more than 1.5 billion dollars worldwide, a figure that continues to grow. The popularity of the web for purchases has been helped in part by the development of online marketplaces that allow the retailer to sell internationally, reach new audiences, and compete with established players in the market.
Social networks
Another of the latest innovations that changed the retail world are social networks. More than 40% of consumers use social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) To recommend products that have proven, according to our study. In addition to influencing purchasing decisions, social networks offer retailers the ability to gather feedback from users about new products and services. With Facebook, reaching more than one million members since its launch on February 4, 2004, it is clear that social networks are here to stay.
Mobile commerce
1,500 million consumers use a mobile device or tablet to make a purchase this year, representing more than 204,000 million dollars in sales. It is expected that this figure will double to reach 516,000 million in 2017, when mobile commerce celebrate its 20th anniversary. The first time a mobile phone was used to make a purchase was in 1997 in Helsinki, Finland, when two Coca-Cola vending machines were configured to accept payments via SMS. Now, the mobile is becoming increasingly important for retailers to interact, support and sell to buyers, both in physical stores and online through mobile applications and websites channel.
Big data
In retail, the “eureka moment” occurred on February 13, 1995, when the British supermarket Tesco launched the first loyalty program based on cards, able to identify interesting patterns in consumer behavior. Now, almost twenty years later, retailers around the world can acquire and analyze more data than ever, and information obtained influences all aspects of retail, from decision making to marketing promotions and design shops.
The Internet of Things (The Internet of Things)
The idea to connect everyday objects Internet was first proposed by Mark Weiser in September 1991. Just over 20 years later, the Internet of things is a reality, with a global market of connected objects that reached a value of $ 1.9 trillion last year. As more objects are connected, this market is expected to reach 7,100 million dollars in 2020.
Geo-location (Beacons)
In 1994, researchers at Ericsson invented a way to connect mobile devices to wirelessly accessories, which later became known as Bluetooth. Twenty years later, a lower power version of Bluetooth is used in the beacons to transmit location – based mobile devices messages. In addition to helping retailers to reach shoppers with relevant offers and promotions based on the locations of their customers into the store, the beacons offer businesses a lot of data and new insights into buyer behavior they enable better decisions when planning the stock and store design.
Self cashiers
Invented by Dr. Howard Schneider to reduce waiting times for payment, the first self-service ATMs were introduced in a store Price Chopper in Clifton, New York, in 1992. More recently, these self-tellers have become a common sight in supermarkets and shops, quadrupling its number since 2008. at the end of this year is estimated to be 430,000 ATMs worldwide self.
drones
Civilian use of unmanned aircraft is taking off, as companies are considering how they could be used to deliver products and provide important services such as wireless internet, to remote locations. For retailers, the drones have enormous potential to make deliveries faster and cheaper, why is expected that the market for these drones can exceed 400 million in 2020.
3D printing
Now that the price of 3D printers is becoming more affordable and that several essential patents expire this year, a larger number of 3D printing products are coming to market. This offers retailers an excellent opportunity to produce customized products ordered in the shop. However, these printers also worry some sectors may have the ability to counterfeit products. To meet future challenges, retailers must work hand in hand with manufacturers to ensure that these opportunities are exploited while protecting intellectual property.