What happens after the digitization? 4 major trends

The digital disruption has more consequences than merely the retail industry’s digitization – many more consequences according to Atos’ VP Global Market Retail, Annick Lemaylleux. At our RetailDetail Congress, she will show us the main trends.

1. Servitization 

It is no longer an attractive proposition to merely sell products. In our contemporary digitized world, everyone can put things online and try to sell them as cheaply as possible. That is exactly why retailers and many other companies are moving away from the business of merely selling products and are turning their attention towards a service-focused business model. 

“There is price and margin pressure everywhere. Retailers face lower margins and increased competition from every angle and in order to differentiate and provide added value, companies are looking for services as a new business model (servitization)”, Annick Lemaylleux explains. “This helps them to create more meaningful interactions with their consumers and that in turn leads to increased loyalty.”

2. Automation 

Companies can become more efficient thanks to automation, both behind the scenes and in stores. The supply chain is filled with robots, particularly in distribution centers, but things can go much further. “A clear example of automation is Amazon Go. Imagine a store without people”, says Annick Lemaylleux.

At RetailDetail Congress, Lemaylleux will explain how one pizza maker uses robots to create pizzas and even installed automated ovens in his trucks to prepare pizzas on their way to the customer. Isn’t it just perfect to get them delivered sizzling hot?

“However, automation can also help you engage your customers even more, like with chatbots.” For instance, cosmetics brand Covergirl created a chatbot out of American teenage sensation Kalani Hilliker: the bot talks and acts like she does, interacting with consumers.

3. Hyper personalization 

Automation and digitization help us personalize the experience even more, even though that sounds like a paradox at heart. Annick Lemayllaux believes hyper personalization is one of the leading trends and one of the digital disruption’s most important consequences.

Annick Lemaylleux also believes that personalized pricing, something already present in our search for airplane tickets, will become commonplace in the future: “Airplane ticket pricing already adapts to the consumer, but soon a bottle of soda will do similarly in the supermarket.”

How? “Electronic price tags are present in most French supermarkets and hypermarkets, which gives them the opportunity to adapt to competitors and other factors in a system called dynamic pricing. In the future, personalized prices will also be possible when the product label interacts with your mobile device and presents a personalized price as a result.”

4. Hybrid consumer journey

The future will house a hybrid consumer journey, according to Lemaylleux. “We used to only have traditional retailers, but they have now added an online compartment to their business. Since that happened, we have moved into an omnichannel phase, mixing both channels in one consumer journey.”

The next step is that those channels disappear. “Retailers have to understand that it is no longer about channels. Every ‘consumer journey’ is a hybrid path: online, offline and all mixed up.”

Make-up chain Sephora wondered whether it could introduce a smaller store formula, only a third of the regular size. It succeeded: Sephora Flash offers a hybrid consumer journey, with some items available in physical form and others only in virtually. 

In the Carrefour hypermarket in Mons, Atos also created a virtual wall near the check-out area, where consumers can order heavy products they can pick up at the Drive at the end of their shopping trip.

What other trends will shape the future of retail? Subscribe to the #Marketing introductory program at the RetailDetail Congress on 27 April and hear it from Annick Lemaylleux herself!