Among the digital tools on display at Tech for Retail, the retail technology show, a few caught our particular attention. Some technologies not only reach end consumers better, but also present solutions to recurring problems faced by commerce, whether physical or online.
The second edition of Tech for Retail – a trade fair dedicated to technological and digital innovations for retail and e-commerce – took place on November 28th and 29th, 2022 in Paris. Among the 200 exhibitors were some specifically targeting the fashion industry, such as Chapsvision, a company affiliated with the LVMH Group, Longchamp, SMCP (Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot, Fursac), Louis Pion, Carré Blanc, Zadig & Voltaire or The Kooples.
Data to better understand consumer needs
“Our mission is to improve the customer journey for luxury and specialist retail chains,” says the stand. “We do ‘Digital in Store'”. This means that Chapsvision provides stores with a tablet PC that connects the digital data of potential customers with the data collected in store: shopping habits, consumption behavior and other important parameters. The sales staff thus receive additional arguments to recommend articles.
The French start-up Greenmetrics, also data-driven, has developed automated assessment tools to ensure the reduction of the impact of online presence, “a SaaS solution to measure, control and reduce a website’s carbon footprint while optimizing its performance,” it says .
From better warehouse management to production control
SoCloz is a company that, in the field of warehouse management, offers an answer to concrete economic and environmental questions: how to sell goods in an environmentally friendly way while making the best use of storage space? The order management software unifies inventory in stores and warehouses, giving businesses new capabilities: online reservation, click-and-collect, ship-from-store, omnichannel returns management, in-store order acceptance, and more. This standardization not only enables better control over incoming and outgoing orders, but also generates additional sales of up to 20 percent, according to SoCloz.
The issue of stock levels calls for a questioning of production systems that too often lead to overproduction. A problem that can be solved by technology. At the fair, the consulting firm Accenture showed the progress made in the field of digitalization of shops in terms of technological and human transformation: the design of digital twins for prototypes and the personalization of articles; dematerialization to free up space in stores and allow employees to spend more time advising on sales; and, of course, Metaverse technologies that enable customers, for example, to try on a piece of clothing on their avatar without waiting in the changing room queue or the ecologically questionable round-trip shipping involved in e-commerce.
Promoting the circular economy and protecting designs from counterfeiting
However, as the budget for these innovations is not affordable for everyone, in the short term a move away from the linear economic model (buy – consume – throw away) that is throwing our consumer society into chaos, towards a more circular economy (resell, recycle, upcycle) must be developed.
This is what CircularX, a start-up we met at the show, is working on: “In many product categories, including fashion, the market for used products will overtake the market for new products in just a few years. In this context, it is imperative for brands to adapt quickly to these new models. Some have understood this and are already setting themselves very ambitious sustainability targets, some aiming for 25 percent of their total sales by 2030. This French company’s digital solution allows brands to launch omni-channel and buyback programs, unlocking the full value of the pre-owned market. In other words, they will no longer be overtaken by second-hand platforms like Vinted and Vestiaire Collective, which are stealing market share from brands for their own items. “CircularX contains all key functions to make secondhand successful and to run an end-to-end take-back offer.”
Protecting retailers also means fighting counterfeiting, which is one of the biggest scourges of online retail. The MarqVision company specializes in finding counterfeit products. The multinational company uses artificial intelligence for this. The algorithm scans the Internet 24/7, focusing on suspicious photos and texts. Then he creates lists that are sent to the marketplaces to remove the offending items. If they are not hosted on the marketplaces but, for example, on social networks, the listing is forwarded to Google so that the links are no longer displayed.
Start-ups bring more humanity into the all-process
Since this article was about tracking down the innovations spotted at the show, we did a lot of exploring in the Start-up Village section, which puts the spotlight on new ideas and concepts. This is also the case with AlloReview, a young French company just two years old that has developed software that allows people to leave a spoken comment online on items they have bought. All voice messages are analyzed by AlloReview and AlloReview then sends a kind of podcast, a feedback on the shopping experience, to its customers. However, the software currently only recognizes 20 percent of the emotional part of a statement. As far as humanization goes, Onepilot offers a solution: an outsourced customer support where more than 700 human employees answer questions 24/7.
You cannot stop progress, you can only control its course. It seems most Tech for Retail exhibitors are excellent partners for entering Retail 3.0.
This article was similar on FashionUnited.fr
released. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ