Retail Digital Transformation Unleashes Opportunities
The gap between digital and physical retail experiences is closing. Ultraconvenient, frictionless, omnichannel shopping, backed by operational efficiency, is now a requirement for retailers to stay informed and be profitable in business.
As a technology leader, Intel has a long history of advancing retail technology through collaboration with retailers. Along with our vast ecosystem of partners, Intel offers a wide array of innovative, intelligent technologies and solutions built on common, open infrastructure to deliver the flexibility, performance, security, and versatility required to address the challenges of today and ready retailers for future advancements.
Customers, accustomed to the immediacy and convenience of e-commerce and the availability of engaging, informative digital content at their fingertips, now look for that experience to extend into the physical store. Shoppers have also become more discerning, changing brand loyalty based on perceived negative experience, product availability, and alignment with their values, including a proven commitment to sustainability from the retailers they frequent.1 At the same time, retailers are faced with fewer staffing resources, supply chain delays, product availability vulnerabilities, and shrinkage.
As a strategy to meet customer needs and address operational challenges, winning retailers are embracing retail digital transformation, investing up to three times their IT spend2 to create connected, intelligent, end-to-end infrastructure that leverages the edge for faster, near-real-time actionable insights and the cloud for deeper data analysis across systems.
Intel is well positioned to help retailers achieve their transformation objectives and accelerate time to value with optimized market ready software tools and technology. With innovative technology that meets the needs of new use cases, retailers gain IT architectures that scale, enabling quick solution delivery from their business to the edge for future-proof operations.
Transforming the Shopping Experience
True retail transformation delivers an immersive, hyperconvenient experience for customers and differentiates leading retailers from their competition.
Intel and our partners work closely with retailers to bring this vision to life through integrated, intelligent technologies and scalable solutions that put data to work at every level of business.
From smart shelves and self-checkout systems to shelf and floor robots in micro-fulfillment centers, retailers can use the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics to learn customer behaviors to enable near-real-time optimizations, gauge the success of promotional strategies, ensure products are in stock and on shelves, speed processes, and deliver more convenient and exciting ways to shop.
Retail Success Stories Enabled by Intel
The evolving needs of retailers and consumers are driving advances in technology to create new solutions and experiences. Learn how these customers and partners are driving retail digital transformation.
Famous Footwear: Boosting Engagement
See how ComQi’s digital signage solutions, powered by Intel® processors, help Famous Footwear boost foot traffic and sell-through.
One Stop: Automated Logistics
Hear how UK-based One Stop convenience stores benefit from automated logistics, including real-time reporting on stock levels, provided by Flooid’s unified commerce platform and networked Flooid POS, powered by Intel® processors.
Town Talk Foods: AI Video Analytics for Sales
Discover how grocery chain Town Talk Foods is harnessing the power of AI video analytics for shopper insights to optimize marketing, operations, and merchandising.
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Increase Satisfaction with Frictionless Experiences
Customers expect retailers to provide hyperconvenient, safe, and personally engaging experiences when and where they shop. Frictionless and touchless technologies and intelligent, connected digital solutions are key to enabling those experiences.
Reduce Loss and Increase Visibility with AI
The increased reliance on customer self-checkout and self-return options for more convenient and frictionless shopping as well as to address modern staffing challenges has also increased the potential for theft. Retailers today need solutions to help them monitor their inventory closely, from truck to shelf, to detect potential shrinkage and prevent loss.
Boost Revenue with Engaging Experiences
Consumers are savvier than ever, choosing to support brands and their retailers that make shopping desirable, personalized, and engaging. At the same time, there are opportunities within the physical retail environment to meet consumer, retailer, and brand expectations for brand affinity, deeper connections, and—ultimately—new revenue streams for profit. Accordingly, technology is reinventing personalized and contextual engagements throughout a physical store, from aisle to endcap to point of purchase.
Transform Your Supply Chain with Intelligent Retail Analytics
Retailers are under pressure to deliver quality products while meeting rising demands and modern consumer expectations. Fragmented supply chains, less staff, and potential vulnerabilities for product deficiencies and shrinkage stretch capabilities for inventory accountability. Increasing operational agility through technology, including AI and data analytics and intelligent edge and cloud solutions, can help retailers improve supply chain visibility, forecasting, and product quality and availability.
Facilitate Manageability and Security
Performant, reliable, and secure computing devices are key to delivering engaging experiences, empowering employees, and maintaining business operations. The Intel vPro® platform brings together business-class performance with integrated, hardware-level data security and remote manageability capabilities to help retailers maximize device uptime and employee productivity and reduce total support costs and work interruptions.
Innovate Faster with the Open Retail Initiative
Along with other top technology companies, Intel is dedicated to accelerating retail innovation at scale through our work on the Open Retail Initiative (ORI). ORI promotes the free exchange of ideas in the retail industry with an open source approach to drive technological advances. The goal of ORI is to enable accessible solutions that accelerate iteration, flexibility, and innovation at scale—from the edge to the cloud.
Explore Retail Technology Further
Customer Experience Podcasts and Webinars
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Your Smarter Solutions Start Here
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is retail technology?
Retail technology encompasses digital systems, solutions, and innovations used in physical retail locations and online platforms for both customer-facing and operational efficiency. It forms the backbone of retail digital transformation.
What technology do retail stores use?
Modern retailers deliver quality customer experiences using a variety and range of technologies, including sophisticated point of sale (POS) systems that compile purchase data, customer history, and inventory movement. Additional technologies include digital signage, self-service kiosks, and analytics to provide personalized recommendations based on prior behaviors. Automated checkouts have become mainstream with touchless self-checkout options that use computer vision. Smart shelves power real-time inventory validation while robotics handle warehouse tasks. Essentially, retailers depend on retail technology to deliver enhanced customer experiences and smarter operations.
What is intelligent retail technology?
Intelligent retail technology delivers enhanced customer experiences through predictive analytics to understand customer preferences and behaviors and artificial intelligence to tailor customer journeys. Further, intelligent retail technology supports retailers in monitoring stock par levels to avoid having too much, or too little, product on hand.
What does IoT in retail mean?
Edge computing-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and solutions for retail, including sensors, kiosks, POS systems, and other internet-connected devices, allow businesses to collect, analyze, and act on data in near-real time. When integrated with other business systems and supported by modernized network infrastructure, data from IoT devices can be used by retailers to provide personalized, safer shopping experiences and improve inventory accuracy and operational efficiency, all key to delivering frictionless omnichannel consumer experiences. For example, IoT in retail means a customer can scan a store window with their phone to learn about a product or price, a sales associate can access the store’s inventory via a tablet, or an enabled inventory tag can be read by a smart watch.
Product and Performance Information
“The New Normal Consumer: How the Pandemic Changed Consumers for Good.” IHL Group, sponsored by Intel, 2022. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/retail/resources/ihl-new-normal-consumer-report.html.
“Nearly 90% of Retail Sales in 2021 to Go through Local Stores According to New Research.” IHL Group, January 12, 2021. https://www.ihlservices.com/news/analyst-corner/2021/01/nearly-90-of-retail-sales-in-2021-to-go-through-local-stores-according-to-new-research/.