Have you ever walked into a retail store, only to be met with empty shelves and misplaced products? Chances are, you have, and it’s very likely you turned around and walked right out to find a better alternative.
In brick-and-mortar retail, having the right product at the right price in the right place—and doing so consistently—is key to conversion. Missing and misplaced merchandise can hinder the customer experience and negatively impact store sales.
Enter RFID and artificial intelligence (A.I.)—the dynamic duo changing the game for retailers of all shapes and sizes. Let’s discuss how a powerful combination of RFID and A.I. technologies improves the customer experience in brick-and-mortar retail.
Customers today are looking for seamless personalized and omnichannel shopping experiences, and retailers are taking note. The vast majority of brick-and-mortar retailers are already taking advantage of RFID technology, which has been used in the industry for decades—but it’s capable of much more when combined with A.I.
Modern retail tech provides valuable product insights, helping brick-and-mortar retailers enhance in-store experiences for their customers. Sixty percent of retailers plan to boost their A.I. investments by mid-2025, and many are already exploring ways to use A.I., which will no doubt continue in the months (and years) ahead.
For example, PacSun, Uniqlo, and Zara are already embracing data-driven inventory management and merchandise planning—and this is just one of the countless examples of how A.I. is being used by retailers today.
With A.I. solutions at their disposal, brick-and-mortar retailers can unlock several key benefits, such as:
Using A.I., headquarters (HQ) can easily track products through the supply chain and give individual stores real-time updates on inventory arrivals. Timely notifications on product shelf lives make it easy for brick-and-mortar retailers to monitor stock more effectively and ensure items are promptly removed from shelves following expiration dates.
Brick-and-mortar retailers also use A.I. to enhance store layouts and designs, analyzing shopping patterns and consumer behavior to consistently put the right products in the right places for maximum exposure. Making high-demand items visible and accessible facilitates a seamless shopping experience, ultimately increasing sales opportunities.
A.I. improves store compliance, ensuring product displays match up-to-date planograms and maintaining consistency across locations. Both store staff and HQ can easily cross-reference product displays with planogram instructions to passively monitor products on a fixture and track said fixture’s compliance over time.
A.I. tools are a cost-effective solution to accurate product placement, helping retailers uncover efficiency gains and streamline store operations. This technology automatically notifies stores when discrepancies arise, enabling quick corrective action when deviations occur and improving communication between stores and HQ.
Brick-and-mortar retailers also use A.I. to gain access to powerful predictive analytics based on shopping patterns and product movement. These insights transform stores into more dynamic environments fueled by real-time feedback on what products are on display, what is in someone's shopping cart, and more.
A.I. ensures shelves are never empty and products are correctly placed, making it easy for customers to find exactly what they need. Having a product on display increases the likelihood of purchase by 68 percent, and having the correct product selection at the right time can boost this percentage by another 10 percent.
With this in mind, retailers can use A.I. to strategically target every fixture in every store and generate campaigns based on region, demographics, type of store, and time of day. The result is a hyper-personalized, customer-centric experience that boosts loyalty, satisfaction, and performance.
Of course, the answer is yes—and Optimum Retailing (OR) is the way forward. Thanks to OR’s unique combination of RFID and A.I. technologies, brick-and-mortar retailers can track and locate store products in near real-time with 99 percent accuracy.
Schedule a demo of OR’s industry-leading in-store management solution to see firsthand how we’re revolutionizing brick-and-mortar retail with RFID and A.I.