Retailers are right to be cautious. There’s no point in using technology for the sake of it, it has to do something to tangibly help the business. Too many technologies are searching for a purpose rather than solving issues.

Yes, retailers are wise to be cautious about investing in cutting edge technology. However, at the same time, retailers also need to stay apprised of the latest technology advancements and carefully consider specifically how they might be leveraged to produce better store experiences for shoppers and improved business results for the retailer. Like all technology advancements, not all of them prove to be effective or turn out the way that was expected. Whether a technology ever becomes “tried-and-true” will ultimately be proven over time – adoption rates and the level of competition in providing these solutions are good indicators.

Retailers have a host of opportunities to improve the shopping experience, and they’re going to prioritize the most impactful ones first. There will always be bright shiny objects (robots that greet you! Mirrors that talk!) but technologies that drive sales and improve profits will always be adopted first.

If it is customer-facing and adds true convenience to make the experience better, most anyone would spend on it. The reality has never kept up with many of the shiny objects at the Big Show. If you have to explain it to every employee and each customer and teach them how to use it to get use, it is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. Put your money in training the people in your store who have the greatest power to increase conversions and build basket.

Injecting cutting edge tech in most retail environments might be a good example of a scenario where the smart move is to be a fast second — or even a slow second.

Caution is the name of the game for the vast majority of retailers. There is a plethora of new technologies claiming to improve customer satisfaction, help revenue or save money – and the economy is good, so we are seeing a lot of experimentation. Our data shows a very high interest and adoption rate in technology such as AI/ML which enhances current solutions to allow for better visibility and decision making. There will be winners and also-rans with what is currently being pushed by tech companies but don’t forget that mobile (e.g. smartphones, tablets) is just over 10 years old and look how that has transformed the industry.

Yes, retailers should be cautious about adopting expensive new technologies, especially ones that are meant to thrill shoppers. Sure, customers will use technology when it’s convenient for them, but currently I think it’s pretty evident that customers just don’t care.

Robots that clean floors earn their keep, but do the rest of these technologies we’ve been talking about forever grow sales? Do they improve the overall store experience? Retailers would be better off using those dollars to hire the right people and train them to provide stellar customer service on the sales floor.

Many cutting-edge technology offerings today bring with them shiny new object syndrome (the one mentioned by Cathy Hotka) and cannot deliver sufficient practical improvement. One robot to greet customers by the door, maybe. However fast, convenient payment systems, for one, have a bigger impact. Facial recognition where identification is required, maybe (yes, in airports). Systems that improve inventory accuracy can deliver more practical value than a drone.

Retail magic and merchandising are all about mastering the arts and sciences. Purpose-led technological investments only make sense when they are centered around solving a complex business challenge and driving outstanding customer experiences.

Integrating new technologies have big implications for and impacts on the organization, and it is very much a cultural shift as well as an executive sponsored strategy to leverage them the right way. This is why we recommend taking a crawl/walk/run approach to any retail transformation, so there are specific, measurable, achievable relevant and timely objectives. It’s critical for retailers and brands to stay true to their core purpose and enable these technologies to add significant if not incremental value for the customer experience.

Retailers should be evaluating and testing technologies that they believe will make them more competitive and are useful to their customers. The cautiousness should come from the costs incurred to implement, whether customers accept the technology and the value created. The technologies need to be tested on these attributes whether in the store or wherever they will affect customer service. They will be tried-and-true when their value is determined and their costs justified.

While many of these new innovations (beacons, drones, facial recognition, etc.) are interesting and have garnered a lot of media attention, they are not all accepted by consumers and many are hard to justify from an ROI perspective.

Some of the other cutting-edge technology that is not as visible may have greater benefits for retailers, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve planning decisions and offer personalized recommendations.

Press releases that indicate one retailer is investing in or testing X new technology are often followed by another retailer saying that they are too, or making similar statements about Y technology. In neither case is there a current need for the technology. The issue with leading edge technology is that it is far too often also bleeding edge.

I do think that all retailers must have their heads above the sand and be willing to challenge themselves in the adoption of new technologies – carefully. I think that the guidelines on what determines their adoption need to be how these tools will reach their customers’ hearts and add unexpected pleasures to the store experience, while creating a customer perception of ease, comfort and control. This is no time for a retailer to sit down and watch in this rapidly-moving technology-enhanced world.

It’s all about sales and profits, not being first or being slick, in most retail cases.

What is going on? PR in search of media hype. Whatever happened to retail merchants? Somewhere along the line, merchant tech insecurity has created a Jetsons-like frenzy replacing common sense.

I believe a cautious approach is best with these technologies. The use cases just aren’t that persuasive. These technologies will only be adopted when there is a hard savings return on investment (ROI). Hard savings ROI is literally head-count reduction and these technologies, to date, have not leaped over that threshold. Beacons are less intrusive and a lower investment so I believe they will be adopted first … facial recognition maybe never. Robots may be a close second for cleaning (a la Walmart), and pick, pack and ship in the DC.

Have to chime in on this thread. Of course retailers should proceed with caution. All business decisions should proceed with caution. The real question is whether retailers should proceed with caution on widespread distribution and adoption of the tech. Right now, most of these techs are POCs. Scaling the tech across thousands of stores will be the real test. It will also define what’s tried and true.

My perspective is that much of the issue here is that organisations very often evaluate these sort of initiatives in isolation of one another. Very often the business case is unlikely to stack up like this or there are huge obstacles in terms of connecting to the existing infrastructure to make it actually work efficiently (for example a store robot adds real value for on-shelf availability when it knows what stock is available in the back-room so it can send an instruction to store teams to replenish the shelf.)
This ability to connect systems — existing and new — is what I see time and time again as the biggest obstacle to these innovations being used.