Technology in Fashion Retail

Gunning for Fashion Retail’s Holy Grail – Omnichannel

• Fashion retail is fast approaching a tipping point.
• The blending of the digital and physical worlds has prompted the coining of a new terminology- the ‘digical’ world. But consumers still want more.
• The year 2015 was dominated by omnichannel retailing and the digital wallet. This year, however, retailers are focusing on speedy delivery, beacons, RFID tags and other emerging technologies.
• While ROI is definitely a key factor in the deployment of these innovations, these technologies are also paying attention to improving customer satisfaction, especially at a time when retailers, from e-commerce to brick-and-mortar, are losing ground on the biggest disrupter of all: Amazon.

Below, we take a look at three retail technology innovations in the fashion industry making a difference in 2016.
1.Social commerce

•  Generation Y wants to be able to shop straight from social media if they see something they like, and so “Buy now” buttons are gradually being plastered on all major social media platforms  
• Companies are also using new technology to display their brands on social media platforms and receiving a large number of hits using data analysis and market survey techniques.
• A large majority of 18 to 24-year-olds have decided to buy something after seeing their friends wearing it online – and almost as many in each age group share “selfies” from shop changing rooms in order to canvass opinions before deciding to buy themselves. 
• Around a quarter of shoppers, overall follow fashion brands – and those that do are highly engaged, even in the 45-54 age group.
• Being able to move from inspiration to purchase in a single click will obviously have a dramatic impact, turning more of this activity into business – and more importantly giving fashion marketers a much clearer view of their social ROI, as well. However, retailers need to harness the impulse to share while considering the best way to stand out on brand-neutral social spaces.

2. Tailored messaging and recommendations

• Good tailoring is arguably now as important to fashion marketing as it is to the clothes themselves. With so many brands active across all channels online, the noise – whether on social networks or in customers’ inboxes – is getting deafening. 
• Clever personalization, which can be as basic as prioritizing the most relevant products and images in digital marketing, or automatically greeting the customer by name.
• Brands are holding detailed, personal information on each consumer, collated across multiple online sources. This gives businesses a great opportunity to get creative and customize content in a way that’s genuinely helpful or intriguing, without being detailed enough to appear intrusive.

3. Blending online and offline

• The overall experience of visiting a store, seeing products first-hand and talking to a human being will always be critical. While advancing technology cannot replace the store or the art of customer service, it does mean that shops need to work harder to keep up.
• Millennials today want a greater level of creative service – product reviews, advice on items and trends – than they experience now. To them, the distinction between online and offline is meaningless, and so retailers are faced with a dual challenge: making the depth and variety of information online available in-store, and extending warm, human customer service into the online realm.
•  This ‘digical’ world of blending the two worlds is fast becoming a huge differentiator for the retailers doing a smart job of it.

The effect of the millennials

• To a digital native, there is no good reason for their experience to be any better or worse in store than it is online. Customers have significantly higher expectations around service and technology in 2016 than ever before. 
• With every passing day, these demanding younger customers get older, and a large number of them potentially move into the target market of major fashion retailers.
• It is an inevitable trend, and when you add the changes happening in the wider online environment, it is likely that fashion retail will come to see 2016 as a watershed year.