Virtual experiences have been booming in retail and e-commerce. And it’s no wonder. VR and AR offer a ton of benefits to companies that sell products online, or use online channels to divert traffic to stores or sales professionals. These experiences can increase conversions, boost word-of-mouth traffic, and lower return rates. Want to see some examples?

Retail businesses understand the value of demand forecasting—using their intuition, product and market experience, and seasonal patterns and cycles to plan for future demand. Beyond the need for forecasts that are as accurate as possible, modern retailers also face the challenge of being able to perform demand planning at scale.

The top brands in the world strive to deliver more of what their customers want in the most convenient and delightful way possible. L’Oreal is relaunching 600 of their 3,000 different websites in just 3 years to impress their customers with a more personalized shopping experience, including AI-powered shopping assistants and color-matching. In this post, we introduce you to the tools that top retail brands are using to meet their digital experience objectives.

There are lessons to be learned from the brick and mortar or pure-play digital retailers that have been successful in the Covid-19 chaos. As the pandemic’s stress test of e-commerce, in-store insights, supply chain visibility, and fulfillment capabilities have revealed shortcomings, and long-lasting consumer experiences— it has also allowed many companies to pivot to very successful strategies built on enterprise data and the digitization efforts that accompany it.

Supply chain redesign has become an area of critical focus as businesses try to ensure supply chains aren’t overly reliant on any one constituent part.

The ongoing disruption to critical supply chains in both the manufacturing and retail space has seen businesses having to respond quickly, turning to data, analytics, and new technologies to better predict and manage ‘real-time’ business disruptions.

To transform your retail organization and be more customer-centric, you need to improve in areas where it counts: areas that impact your customers’ experience. The lifeblood of any retail organization, your customers expect a lot from the industry, especially with all the recent changes in shopping habits and the economic landscape in general. Customers are more discerning these days, and it will be up to retail organizations to cater to their needs and expectations.

Feedback is crucial to continuous improvement. When an employee wants to be more effective at their job, they would benefit from knowing what they’re good at and where they need to improve. The same goes for your products. To consistently offer quality products, knowing what your customers think is key. Customer reviews are a goldmine of valuable big data and insights that all retail organizations should tap into.

In today's retail marketplace, digital channels hold a prominent and often central position. Modern software practices emphasize the need for rapid development and deployment. The retail world is no exception to this need for speed. To match the pace of innovation, continuous testing throughout the software development life cycle is the best way to build digital confidence and provide a great user experience.