North American Department Store Technology Redemption In 2016

It has to be said that for traditional physical stores, closing stores has become a common phenomenon. More often, retailers are starting to redeem themselves by introducing new technologies to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.

Although at present, there is no technology that really brings a retailer back to life, but at least the technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality have at least given the retailer a hopeful space.

We may wish to use the retail version of "Titanic" Sears department store, J.C.Penney

For example, North American retailers, especially department stores in North America, are on the road of technology redemption in 2016.

1. Sears Department deep tillage membership system

It has to be said.

"Titanic" Sears is really loaded with icebergs, which has been sold to the US GDP1% for 20 consecutive quarters.

Things are common.

It must also be admitted that Sears has been saving himself, and is more intelligent than what seems to be "less reliable" now -- do you really know where to use and how to use it? -- and other high technologies, Sears is mainly using technology to save his membership system ShopYourWay.

Sears's department store membership system

Sears and Uber cooperate with the drivers and passengers to get their priority account and Sears account to get more member points.

At least from the current feedback, the result is good, because Sears has extended the cooperation to 23 states.

At the same time, Sears also opened up the membership system and mobile payment platform Activehours, allowing salespeople and members to purchase through advance.

In addition, Sears seems to have not yet played a card, that is, Wally Home - Sears acquired the smart home sensor business in 2015, and nothing happened.

In November 2016, Wallyhome announced that they had developed the first product after the merger. This product can tell users through SMS, App push or even phone, whether your home is leaking, leaking or even closing doors and windows.

Whether there will be good news in 2017, it depends on Sears.

2.J.C Penney Department reshape all channels

Speaking of self redemption, J.C.Penney department store is an expert. Though Sears is not as miserable as he is, Penney stores are facing the dilemma of "the old generation of users are old and the new generation of customers will not come" - and it has been several years.

But when it comes to technology redemption, it began at the end of 2015, and it is quite effective from now on.

In 2016, Penney department stores mainly focused on App and all channel construction. In the 3 year plan announced in mid 2016, it emphasized that the work of the whole channel should be put first and put at the core.

On the App side, Penney stores rebuilt a App that allows users to find products faster, make it easier to use discounts, and achieve mobile payments. Even this App has reached 4.5/5 points in Apple stores.

And in terms of the whole channel, Penney department store is the main player under the "online store Buy Online (Pickupin Store, BOPIS)". The data show that consumers can enjoy this service in 1000 stores. The official website (jcp.com) has more than 150 thousand kinds of goods that can be delivered in the same store during the next 4 months.

And when the user takes the order, 40% of the users will buy something else.

Its CEO Marvin Allison said that the online orders of Penney department store 50% came from offline, so for Penney department store, the whole channel is not an advertising word, but a real strategy.

So, from the present point of view, the idea of Penney department store is "old-fashioned", but it seems to be the most effective one.

3. North Stone department technology remodeling service

Nordstrom runs its first chatting robot (Chatbot) in Facebook Messenger and chat software Kik, and adds new functions to App.

Chatting robots have become a topic of discussion among American retailers. Compared to running a large customer service team, there are usually not many things, but the shopping season will be busy. Chatting robots can greatly enhance efficiency and reduce costs.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, Chatbots can save about 37.3% of the labor cost of enterprises.

And because these robots are based on artificial intelligence, semantic analysis and other systems, in fact, they can provide more accurate services.

Robot chat robot

There are two ways to use chat robots in North Stone department. The first is that users only need to do single questions according to the questions raised by robots. For example, robots ask "where will you see this weekend"? The options include "going to the comic show", "going to parties", "out of town" and so on. After the user chooses, the robot raises the next question. After several answers, the user will be recommended by the robot, and can directly click on the purchase.

The second is the traditional direct communication through robots and customer service. Users can only communicate with customer service by typing their own problems, but there may be waiting time when they are busy, and when customer service sees this problem, sometimes it takes time to answer, and the answer may be very bad.

The author made an attempt to ask customer service "want to know what to buy for Mom". After waiting for 10 minutes, he got a shopping list which contained more than 970 kinds of merchandise, which was very inefficient compared with chat robot.

Of course, this explains the data from the Aspect Software Research report of the United States. 44% of the respondents said they were more willing to communicate with a chat robot than a customer service.

In App, update was also updated.

In October 2016, its App added an option called "reservation in store try on". When customers saw their interested clothing and caps on the Internet, they could ask shops to reserve them to designated shops so that they could try them on.

The store will contact the users after receiving the information and setting up the goods (usually completed within 2 hours) to ensure that they will try it on - there is no cost in the whole process.

Then users do not need to go to a specific brand store. They only need to go to Order Pickup Department, and they will find the fitting rooms and goods reserved for themselves.

This solves the problem of "Cart Abandonment" to a certain extent. After all, it is a picture on the cell phone. If you like it again, you can only put it in the electronic shopping cart, but if you can't strike while the iron is hot, let the customer experience it, the basic commodity will always be thrown into the virtual shopping cart.

In fact, the entire traditional retail circle is carrying out "self redemption", combining new technologies with online and offline businesses. There are both state-of-the-art technologies such as artificial intelligence, and traditional channels.

It can be said that American retailers are busy in 2016 and will be busier in 2017, because they will be aware of the pformational power of technology for retailing, either early or late, but only sooner or later.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.