The world is now in the phase of transition where Artificial Intelligence is making its impact prominently felt. The retail industry has been immensely benefited by the inclusion of artificial intelligence. This technology has equipped the retailers with more efficiency, accuracy, and better decision-making ability. The applications will also make their work faster and as a result will help them save a lot of money. Due to the efficiency of Artificial Intelligence, the retail market is investing more and more money in AI driven applications. The global annual spending is expected to grow to a massive 7.3 billion by the year 2022. It is also expected that by 2023, more than 325,000 retailers will be implementing machine learning in their work.
In order to enhance the customer experience, many retailers have already started implementing artificial intelligence in their services. Amongst a few techniques , image recognition , object detection , optical character recognition and human pose estimation are widely used by the retailers.
Now let us look at some of the most inspiring applications of AI in retail which have the potential to reshape the retail industry’s future:
Inventory Management : For any retailer , managing inventory and selling it at the right time is extremely important. With the help of artificial intelligence, retailers can now easily enhance their supply chain, promotional planning and can also regulate their pricing as per customer’s need. In order to keep a track of the inventory, the computer vision systems help the retailers to track the products on shelf with the help of image segmentation and strong object detection algorithms. The system also helps to keep a track of sales or if any product goes out of stock. It also predicts the shelf-life of a product. The AI software is becoming the worker’s companion and is helping them to get the best products on and out of the shelf in record time.
Customer Behavior Analysis : The retailers always aim to provide the best experience to their customer. However, it is really essential for a retailer to analyze a customer’s behavior. For a retailer there are mainly three things which matter the most when it comes to customers. First, their suspicious activity which may lead to shoplifting. This can lead to heavy losses as the inventory will go out without any monetary benefit to the retailer. To tackle this problem, retailers are now installing AI powered CCTV cameras which are enabled to track the customer’s behavior and identify if any suspicious activity takes place. It then informs the staff member about the same so that immediate action can be taken. To tackle theft, computer vision systems alarm any potential theft when an object goes missing. These applications are highly accurate and help in catching thieves in the stores.
Second, to analyze the gaze time. This helps the retailers understand the customer’s mindset and how much time does he/she take in front of a shelf to choose a product. Using AI helps to understand the customer’s needs in order to give them personalized assistance.
Cashierless Checkouts : In this new normal era, social distancing and avoiding physical contact is a necessity. To avoid contact during checkout, retailers are now using AI to minimize the physical contact between the customer and the cashier. With the help of IoT sensors, Big Data analytics and computer vision cameras, retailers can track the product movements and detect the price automatically. To encorp cashierless checkouts, the customers will have to download the store app. The retailers can use a smart store cart which is AI powered , weight sensitive and can easily detect the product via weight and inbuilt barcode scanner. The customer can then add items in the app and go through a screening process which will automatically do the transaction through the card. Big data analytics enables retailers to identify customer behaviour and improve their future experience. This technology will benefit the retailers in cost reduction as they will save money from going cashier-less and also will decrease the waiting time in the billing counter.
The future of the retail industry is now becoming AI powered. More and more retailers are shifting their businesses to AI as it is helping them in scaling their business and in making their sales more efficient and consistent. The use of AI driven applications is indeed reducing shoplifting and is helping the retailers make their sales faster at the same time giving them more and more profit.
Author- Toshank Bhardwaj, AI Content Creator
