In 2019, up-to-date technology playing an intrinsic role in your workplace is critical for retail success. However, the keyword is performance. Sure, you could make a checklist of the most recent technology and buy one of each. But it’s less about what you have and more about how you’re using it.
Really, the best way to ensure high performance in your digital and retail practices is finding the right people. You need to find people who are collaborative, agile, analytical, and highly knowledgeable about your company’s digital tools. This is paramount in ensuring that your company delivers the best customer experiences in the digital space.
Of course, even with the best people, you still want to do whatever you can to help them succeed. Right now, a lot of retail companies are investing in associate-facing technologies that support self-service SaaS technologies. In other words, give your high-level associates the technology that helps take care of their low-level duties completely. The more time you give your associates to execute their high-level duties, the better.
These days having a robust platform is the name of the game. Interconnected ecosystems such as these are vital for keeping your employees, partners, and even competitors in one place. Before eCommerce platforms became so accessible, retail companies would still carry out a lot of the same duties, but of course, they had separate entities to help them with each part. It’s no longer efficient to run your business in such a piece-wise method.
Today, eCommerce platforms bring you way more efficiency. They do this by allowing you to seamlessly scale relationships and collaboration within your digital and retail practices. There are countless ways in which platforms do this, but more particularly individuals in your marketing, ordering, and pricing roles will be alleviated:
1. Marketing. The right eCommerce platform brings together your marketing and IT departments. With a reliable CMS, all individuals in the company give permission to make important marketing changes to the website. This way, marketing won’t have to rely on IT to make website changes, freeing up more time for both parties.
2. Ordering. You can’t have a successful platform without a robust OMS. The right platform allows you to put in infrastructure so that you can easily see your company’s inventory and re-order efficiently. It will also allow you to set up direct connections with your vendors and suppliers, freeing up even more time for those who had to spend all day calling and coordinating.
3. Pricing. Even individuals in pricing can be alleviated by the right e-commerce platform. Such a platform will allow any individuals with the right permissions to make price adjustments that will automatically apply everywhere throughout your site. You can also set discounted prices for special and seasonal offers.
As discussed earlier, with all of these individuals (and many more) directly affected, their time will be freed up to do higher-level work. If these advances sound helpful to you so far, then you should look into the e-commerce platforms that could help you the most today. Luminos Labs is a proud partner of Episerver and we have 10 years of experience helping medium to enterprise-level businesses successfully transition to a digital experience that is right for their employees and vision.
Last but certainly not least, it’s vital to embrace the AI and automation changes sweeping the retail nation. The use of AI and automation in your day-to-day business processes is becoming the new standard.
While AI may sound a little scary at first, there’s really nothing to fear. Amazing technology has been developed so that the more mundane and repetitive parts of your digital and retail practices can be done automatically. Again, this would free up way more time for your employees, allowing them to focus more on high-level tasks.
In particular, Episerver also has great AI and automation capabilities built-in. One of the most interesting AI features is its customer memory. With an Episerver-driven site, you will be able to automatically collect information about the shopping behaviors of your online customers.
Even if the customer doesn’t make a purchase at that moment, there’s still a plan. If a customer leaves but then returns later on, the site will remember the shopping decisions they made last time and will try to promote the items they looked at for a discount, encouraging them to buy. While these decisions can be made by AI, you still have to allow the permission first.
