AutoID & Data Capture Blog




Reengineer, Restructure, and Revamp Retail with Mobile Data Capture Technology

by Richa Gupta | 12/13/2017

VDC recently published a white paper in collaboration with mobile data capture vendor, Scandit. This piece analyzes the unprecedented challenges facing retailers with brick-and-mortar store locations today and their need to make strategic investments in technology solutions in order to compete effectively for customers and revenues. Shoppers today seek instant gratification and their exposure to a variety of different platforms and brands has dramatically altered their retail-related expectations. While optimizing this experience is a critical factor in generating brand loyalty, challenges associated with boosting retailer profitability are also prompting businesses to look at new ways to enhance employee efficiency, provide increased visibility across the supply chain, and lower overall costs.

From VDC’s perspective, retailers have historically been very reluctant to make significant changes to brick-and-mortar operations. That is now changing, especially as they look to mimic the online experience in their physical store locations. Traditional retailers are increasingly looking to fundamentally restructure and reengineer their footprints, which has them embracing omnichannel concepts. The ultimate goal is to bring the efficiencies and experiences associated with e-commerce to physical in-store environments, which also comes by way of positioning the store as a showroom or fulfillment center. VDC’s latest white paper with Scandit discusses changes to the overall retail landscape due to recent investments by Amazon and Walmart, and how these will pave the way for the future of this industry.

The role of the physical storefront is changing to one that focuses just as much on customer service, order fulfillment, and returns management as the online sales channel. To accomplish this, retailers are placing a higher premium on training and empowering sales associates to ensure that they are qualified to address customer requirements with technology enabling the same. Retailers are ramping up their mobile device investments to not only bridge the gap between shoppers’ online and brick-and-mortar experiences, but to enable cross-channel fulfillment opportunities. Scandit capitalizes on its competence in enterprise software application development and deployment on consumer smart devices to empower retailers with end-to-end solutions that will assist with their digital transformation objectives. Its Flow platform, which is web-configurable for both iOS and Android, enables the rapid development, deployment and lifecycle management of a wide range of data capture applications for smartphones and tablets, leveraging the solution provider’s SDK (Software Development Kit). With this, the vendor offers application capabilities ranging from clienteling and mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) to mobile order entry and inventory management, which are all essential to help retailers streamline in-store workflows and increase sales.

VDC discusses several such in-store technology themes in this white paper. Click here to download and read more about the digital transformation of retail!