Have no fear, robotic process automation is here
RPA technology is empowering non-techies to develop software and helping businesses speed their automation efforts.
Retail is now moving at the speed of light. From pricing to inventory, any time spent on manual processes is a step toward defeat, and any time spent on retail automation is a win.
Now you might think thats a bold claim, but I’ll let you in on why it’s bound to be a reality for the retail industry in 2016.
Technological advances have come far and some pretty wild things are possible.
You can now order items by pushing Amazon Dash buttons around your home, then have Alexa turn off the lights using an Amazon Echo when youre done in that room. As you can tell, Amazon is driving much of the innovation in retail, with implications far beyond the industry. It popularized one of the most popular forms of automation that is becoming a must-have in online retail: dynamic pricing.
To be transparent, dynamic pricing can be done in two ways: manually and automatically.
Retailers that only sell a few products can get away with doing it manually, but the larger the SKU count, the less sense it makes. Jeff Bezos doesn’t stay up at night changing the prices of the countless trucker hats on Amazon to keep up with Walmart. He has precious sleep to be getting and genius ideas to come up with, after all. His software does all of that work for him.
Retail automation: Two options for businesses
Retailers have two options in 2016: keep up with the flow of traffic or get off the road.
Amazon has been in a Hennessey Venom breezing past the competition in online retail because it stays competitive around the clock. Like a self-driving car, automated repricing wont be caught sleeping at the wheel or stuck in a long line at an In-N-Out drive-thru. And thats exactly what retailers need if they want to win big this year, something that will take control and send them into hyper-speed.
Pricing optimization is important for any business looking to boost profits and revenue in the new year and competitors are there to sabotage your plan every step of the way.
Dynamic pricing is a pricing model that keeps them on your radar instead of nervously watching them every now and then in the rearview mirror. It takes into account competitor prices, as well as inventory levels, seasonality, demand, and more when changing prices. Retailers using dynamic pricing can manually approve price changes or put it in auto-drive with a machine-learning algorithm that finds the sweet spot of pricing for each item over time.
Pricing is an important part of optimizing a retail business, but why waste a great price on the wrong product? Thats why retailers are starting to automate the inventory monitoring process as well. Theyre using it to keep tabs on competitors inventories and stock up on best selling products.
Real-time dynamic pricing: Where online retail is headed
Dynamic pricing is necessary in online retail because shoppers are highly price sensitive and the market is hyper-competitive.
Inventory automation can tell retailers a number of things, such as what products they should add to improve their assortment and what trendy products they should probably skip. There are two ways to do this. Similarly to pricing automation, it is a mixture of taking a look at competitor inventory and overall industry trends. Together they can help retailers optimize their offerings.
Taking a competitive approach to assortment means monitoring competitor inventory and asking key questions. What do they have that I don’t? What are my potential margins if I were to sell the items Im missing? Where is my assortment unique? How can I improve margins on the items only I sell?
The other side of inventory automation takes a look at best sellers in similar categories. It takes into account rating on top marketplaces, historical sales volume, and popularity volatility to present you with a report on the top bestselling products. Armed with that data, retailers are able to take a data-driven approach to improving their inventory.
So why is 2016 the year that automation in retail will really take off? For one, the technology is now accessible to retailers. e-commerce enhancement tools are abundant on both the pricing and inventory automation side. Second, Amazon is picking up speed faster than ever and making a ton of money from its profitable Web Services division.
All that cash is funneled into innovations that take retail to the next level. Automation is required to keep up with the king of the retail jungle. The extra time that retailers will gain can be devoted to differentiating their businesses. Even beyond pricing and inventory, finding more ways to stick out in the minds of consumers is going to be necessary to keep retail growing in 2016.
