Last January, NRF 2019, the largest global retail event, was held in New York, an event that clarified the direction that this sector will take in terms of digital transformation.
One of the trends that was strongly expressed was “unified commerce,” which is a technology that seeks to overcome omnichannel, which is based on the centralization of data and transactions in an integrated platform, thus eliminating duplications and manual processes; and also the integration of open and interconnected systems through all areas of consumer experience to have a single vision of all channels. The progress of this trend is still in development, which is based on “machine learning” and artificial intelligence. In fact, this year there were more than 130 companies at the NRF with solutions dedicated to these latter concepts.
As for stores, and according to data presented by Forrester at this same convention, it is estimated that only 36% of retailers will open new stores this year. However, 16% closed stores in 2018 and only 7% are expected to do so this year. These figures reaffirm that e-commerce is working to include physical stores in its experience, as they continue to be the driving force of retail.
Cloud and microservices will also be a trend, which will focus on delivering solutions to experiment, transform and accelerate the organization’s response to omnichannel commerce.
Technology to personalize the shopping experience will also lean toward cameras, voice-based searches for information and products, integration of products and their labels with e-commerce and social networks, and virtual systems.
