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As the retail landscape continues to change, the act of shopping isn’t solely about purchasing a product or service anymore—it’s about the overall experience. An article from Retail Insider titled Retail Reinvention in Canada: What to Do Now mentions, “From traditional to mobile, retailers can transform the shopping experience with technology solutions that help empower employees and engage customers.”
As consumers have been adapting to the accelerated digitization of their shopping habits and experiences, retailers have had to step up their game and adhere to expectations. Although the pandemic might have been the push behind this acceleration, it’s opened up beneficial opportunities for retailers to reinvent their area of business. And for most retailers, this reinvention involves undergoing the digital transformation today’s consumers want to see and participate in.
Plan ahead with Digital Smart Labels™
Amongst the POS systems that help you run operations more efficiently and the iPads enabling you to conduct a transaction through a mobile device, Digital Smart Labels™ can help you be better prepared for upcoming changes while arming you with the efficiency of handling the unexpected with ease—and excelling at it.
For example, no one would have foreseen the pandemic and its impact on the retail industry and the way we shop in general. Meanwhile, Canada’s Food Price report of this year presents an increase of as high as 5% for food prices compared to 2020.
Unexpected shifts such as these alter what we’ve become accustomed to and the shopping process we’ve known for a while. But by implementing a digital strategy and being open to the new now, not only will you be prepared for the next big change, but you will also be able to strengthen your brand and improve customer retention. Let’s take a look at the many ways Digital Smart Labels™ can help your business achieve that.
Be ready for change
Economically speaking, occurrences such as rising gas prices, fluctuating commodity costs, and even an increase in imports have and are continuing to influence how retailers manage and implement their in-store pricing strategies. And with such sudden changes, retailers are left with no choice but to allocate extra hours and labour to accommodate them.
For those who rely on the old, traditional ways of adapting to these changes and updating their price and product information, this manual process would require all hands on deck and even more hours to have it completed before or by the deadline. As a result, this could be costly when it comes to time and money spent constantly printing new paper labels.
Digital Smart Labels™, drastically minimize the hours and labour spent updating paper labels, and in some cases, eliminate it all together. With the click of a button, you can be better prepared for unexpected changes in price the moment you become aware. And because Digital Smart Labels™ can integrate seamlessly with any modern ERP/POS system, they can be programmed to change prices across multiple stores from a centralized location—ensuring complete accuracy and adaptability at all times.
Post-pandemic trends are here to stay
There’s no denying that the retail environment changed dramatically throughout 2020 and into 2021. Consumer habits, buying and merchandising, and even marketing has adapted to new trends during the pandemic. And unsurprisingly enough, many of them are here to stay. According to an article from Canadian Grocer titled New study looks at post-pandemic grocery trends, “The focus now should be on maintaining the momentum gained during the pandemic, identifying which consumer trends of the past year are permanent, and adapting and responding to life after the pandemic.”
As consumers, we’ve all learned to adjust to these new habits. However, for many retailers, this is just the beginning of their adaptation. With the dramatic rise in consumer preference for contactless tools and devices, such as self-checkouts and contactless pickup, embracing technology is key for retailers to stay afloat while the industry as whole recovers.
Between in-store shopping restrictions and consumers’ preference for technology, Digital Smart Labels™ are a modern—and sanitary— automation solution that frees up employees to focus on more important tasks and less time on manually updating price and product information on high-contact surfaces.
Simplifying supply chain and inventory management
Any retailer would tell you that one of their main business goals is to improve profitability and manageability. As the American track and field sprinter Allyson Felix once said, “Everyone sees the glory moments, but they don’t see what happens behind the scenes.” There are so many steps being taken behind the scenes which affect the customer experience and their purchases. The processes of supply chain and inventory management are starting to become more digitized, and this is driving up efficiency and productivity levels overall.
If we were to break down the process of the supply chain in simple terms, it would be divided into a variety of organized steps before a product would be available to the customer. Why not make this process more simple? From product development to manufacturing and distribution, automating this workflow could help create an operational network focusing on efficiency and resiliency.
Through the implementation of Digital Smart Labels™, retailers can digitally transform and streamline their supply chain and inventory management. The technology enables retailers to control, monitor, and update information on the fly, ultimately increasing productivity while gaining a more competitive edge.
It’s never too late to catch up
We often forget how far we’ve come with technology and tend to take for granted all of the digital tools available to us today. When we compare the then vs now it is a true transformation. And the further we move along, the faster these changes will come.
With new automation and in-store technologies developing every day, it’s critical for retailers not only to catch up, but also to be ready ahead of time— especially when it comes to technologies that increase reliability and overall efficiency. Call us today and find out how Digital Smart Labels™ can help you and your business lead today’s digital retail transformation.
