You need to wear a lot of hats in order to run a fashion store, whether online or in the flesh with a retail property. You need to be a manager, an accountant, a marketer and more. Now, you need to wear your IT wizard hat as well. That is if you truly want to thrive and beat out your competitors. Here, we’re going to look at three technologies in particular that can help any store keep up with the market as it gets more digital, more competitive, and more exclusive.
Keeping track
Inventory management is now a crucial element of keeping any retail store profitable. It uses both hardware and software to track all your assets. This means that you get more reliable inventory accounting for tax purposes and cash flow, for instance. Tracking inventory can also reduce your encounter with shrinkage due to theft. It allows you to collect more data on your goods with tags that identify items, their costs, their price, shipment number and much, much more. Inventory management is also crucial in online stores where you have to constantly know where every item is, so you can take it off the store when you’ve run out and prevent order errors or make sure that orders are fulfilled as quickly as possible. Essentially, the better care you take of your assets, the more you stand to profit.
It’s all connected
The internet-of-things is a term that’s growing in popularity and it could offer a lot to your fashion store. With tech like Bluetooth LE, every single item and device in the store can be interconnected. This can help in a rather wide variety of ways, as well. A variety of sensors can work together to improve security, for instance. Inventory management can be improved through IoT as well. The IoT can also be used to track the customer footprint through the store, providing data you can use to create displays in places more likely to get their attention and sell more items. But it can offer even more new experiences to customers. For instance, you can attach tags to products that customers can use to scan them and immediately get much more detail on a product.
The personal assistant
When customers are looking for fashion purchases, they’re not always certain what they want. You’re not just selling garments, you’re selling a look. New tech like the Amazon Echo Look can help you do just that. Fashion stores are already using it to provide advice to customers on what to wear, what goes with what, and what doesn’t. You can even use it to recommend items in the store based on what the customer is wearing at that moment, or you can use it to form complete outfits with what you offer.
Success with a fashion store is never about the clothes alone. It’s about the service you can provide your customers. Nowadays, more and more, technology is playing a bigger role in that service than humans could dream to.
