Intelligent shoppingTechnology trends in retail

Introduction 03

Technologies enabling next gen retail 04

Case study - Walmart 05

Retail 2025: What to look forward to 06

Retail 2025: What to look forward to (contd.) 07

Key players 08

Key players and investments 09

Why BootUP? 10

02

IntroductionIndustries across the world are getting disrupted at an increasing pace due to technology that promises to

make consumers’ lives easier while keeping businesses firmly in the red. Though reports on breakthroughs

in artificial intelligence lean towards sensational stories like self-driving cars and AI-equipped players

beating their human counterparts in notoriously complex games like Go, one industry that makes less

news but has a significant impact on the lives of ordinary individuals due to its increasing use of artificial

intelligence is retail.

These are just a few ways in which technology has changed the retail experience as we know it:

03

Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home are not

just speakers but can help you shop from the

comfort of your home. All you need to do is

place a voice order mentioning the items

you’d like to buy, and the speaker places the

order with the Amazon’s ecommerce site or

Google’s retail partners, respectively.

Virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri and

Google’s Home help shoppers create

shopping lists through voice commands, and

then check out individual items or entire lists

through the connected ecommerce stores.

You can even create default shopping lists

which can be automatically checked out

based on reminders.

Physical shopping acquired a new dimension

with Amazon Go, Amazon’s next generation

supermarket, where you can pick up your

purchases and walk out without having to

stand in a checkout line, and receive an

online bill for your purchases, for which you

can confirm payment through the registered

credit card.

Smart speakers Virtual shopping assistant Grab-and-go retail

04

Technologies enabling next gen retail

Artificial Intelligence • Deep learning-powered shopping

• Better predictive and prescriptive models

• Activity detection for differentiated shopping experiences

• Personalized promotional deals and loyalty programs

• Up-to-date product range based on shopping trends

Chatbots • Provide personalized assistance

• Provide product recommendations

• Share brand or product updates

• Provide in-store assistance and navigation

• Offer promotions based on location

Internet of Things • Deep learning-powered shopping

• Better predictive and prescriptive models

• Activity detection for differentiated shopping experiences

• Personalized promotional deals and loyalty programs

• Up-to-date product range based on shopping trends

Big Data • Deep learning-powered shopping

• Better predictive and prescriptive models

• Activity detection for differentiated shopping experiences

• Personalized promotional deals and loyalty programs

• Up-to-date product range based on shopping trends

Cloud • Deep learning-powered shopping

• Better predictive and prescriptive models

• Activity detection for differentiated shopping experiences

• Personalized promotional deals and loyalty programs

• Up-to-date product range based on shopping trends

Blockchain• Deep learning-powered shopping

• Better predictive and prescriptive models

• Activity detection for differentiated shopping experiences

• Personalized promotional deals and loyalty programs

• Up-to-date product range based on shopping trends

OVERVIEW

Walmart is the undisputed king of offline retailing, with its 11,000 brick and mortar stores. Though titans in the ecommerce space

such as Amazon and Alibaba are challenging Walmart’s supremacy in the online space, Walmart is aggressively coming out on its

own, using bleeding edge technology that includes artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things(IoT), big data, robotics, virtual reality

(VR) and augmented reality (AR).

INITIATIVES

Walmart’s push for supremacy in online retailing covers various areas, including:

Enhancing operational efficiency in stores

Using facial recognition and behavioral analysis technologies, Walmart analyzes customer behavior while browsing or while waiting

at checkout queues to determine if they are getting frustrated or need help, so it can quickly dispatch assistants to help them out

and ensure that customers always have a pleasant shopping experience.

Providing a rich blended experience

For customers preferring online shopping and picking up their purchases at a convenient Walmart outlet, Walmart offers them the

option of completing their purchase online and scanning their purchase receipt at a Pick-up Tower, which is placed at the entrance

to the offline store. Within 45 seconds of scanning the purchase receipt, the customers purchases are delivered to them on a

conveyor belt. Also, if customers are making pharmacy-related purchases or using Money Services, they can prefill the paperwork

needed and finish the purchase transaction in the app, and when they enter the offline store, they can simply pick up their

purchases and leave, without having to wait in the checkout queue. Initiatives like these have won the approval and delight of

Walmart shoppers.

IoT to transform the shopping experience

By placing IoT tags/sensors in products, Walmart can monitor the usage routines of customers by product, expiry dates, and

defects, and send reminders based on this data to customers so they can replenish products before stocks run out, or know about a

product’s impending expiry in advance. The vast amount of data gained by Walmart because of monitoring every individual product

in this manner, as well as the interactions of the product with other smart devices, such as refrigerators, using Bluetooth and RFID,

will give Walmart a strong edge over competitors in understanding and predicting customer preferences and offer them the

maximum convenience.

Walmart - Pushing the limits with technologyCase study

05

06

Retail 2025: What to look forward to

Retail trends for 2025

The retail industry of 2025 will be a heady blend of high technology and immersive experiences. A retail

store will become a destination to experience rather than to just shop in. Micro-level personalization will be

possible on a macro scale due to the convergence of big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, AR, VR and robotics.

Store associates will evolve into shopper advocates, responsible for the overall experience of the customer.

Best of all, technology will enable the new retail experience without interrupting it.

Shared ownership

• Using 3D printers, customers will design their own products.

• The opportunity to become co-owners of merchandise will increase.

• In-store automated manufacturing can enable instant products.

Routine purchases becoming fully automated

• Transactions, including replenishment, of low mind share products such as grocery

purchases, will become fully automated and set to each customer’s buying patterns.

• Retail personnel interaction will happen only for high-end complex products like

electronics, which will be sold in highly interactive and experiential environments.

Robots and humans work together

• Retail tasks will be clearly demarcated, wherein humans

will be accountable for increasing customer delight with

highly personalized interactions, whereas robots will

mostly be engaged in purely operational work such as

stocking shelves, fetching products, checking inventory,

checkout assistance, etc.

• Robots, though, will also be used in delighting customers

by ‘interacting’ with them through attached interfaces

such as tablets, to get to know customer preferences

better and guide them towards the right shelves, apart

from making them feel welcome through pleasant, if

minimal, conversation.

Shopping transformed from an activity into an experience

• Augmented reality experiences such as touchscreen

mirrors that let you virtually try various clothes sizes and

options will become common.

• Concept retail stores, such as House of Vans in London,

which has its own underground concrete ramp, mini ramp

and street course for avid skaters, will become more

popular.

• A set of personalized experiences that tie in to a central

theme, such as Ikea’s ‘sleepover shop’ experience provided

to winners of their Facebook contest, which included

massages, salons, and choices of mattresses, sheets and

pillows for a complete tailor-made experience, can enhance

brand perception.

07

Key playersCOMPANY COUNTRY WHAT IT DOES SOLUTIONS

SmartCow

https://www.smartcow.ai/

SmartCow builds hardware architecture that

deploys deep learning technology and

GPU-accelerated network devices for leading

practitioners of Deep Learning, Cybersecurity and

IoT, all trending technologies in the retail industry.

End-to-end solutions covering feasibility, features, set-up, integration and support.

Hardware: Processor, cameras, enclosure, rig, etc.

Software: Neural models, code integration, driver support, user interface, etc.

Maxerience

http://www.maxerience.com/

Maxerience is involved in embedded system and

visual intelligence to provide business analytics in

the consumer space. Their IPs transform standard

vision and detection algorithms to give an accuracy

improvement of 3X in dynamic environments.

Business analytics solutions in the consumer space using Visual Intelligence and

Adaptive Learning.

Technologies used include:

• Machine Learning

• Embedded Systems

• Deep Neural Networks

• Computer Vision

• Intelligent IoT

• Parallel Computing

FaceMedia

http://www.facemedia.io/

FaceMedia implements face and body

detection-based technologies to deliver solutions

for retail, digital signage, and advertising. It helps

customers analyze consumer insights and identify

key metrics about visitors of shopping malls.

• Content Player & Faceboard

• Analytics & Content Manager

• Heat maps & flows

• Automated Customer Satisfaction Score (ACSS)

DressLife

https://www.dresslife.com/

DressLife enables online shoppers to filter clothing

according to their probability of keeping and liking

the product (based on an artificial neural network).

• Size and style prediction

• Intelligent filtering

• Data analytics

• Clothing simulation

DigitalBridge

http://digitalbridge.eu/

DigitalBridge is a magical room visualization tool

that allows your customers to see what your home

decoration products look like in their room. Their

computer vision technology analyzes and generates

a 3D space to work from.

Survey, a new augmented reality (AR)-based measurement tool, enables customers

to renovate their kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms with ease by quickly, accurately

and easily creating a floor plan of the room they want to decorate by simply walking

about the room using the app.

MapD

https://www.mapd.com/

By pairing a lightning fast, SQL-compliant GPU

database with a cutting edge visual analytics

engine, MapD allows multi-billion record datasets to

be queried and visualized in milliseconds.

• Business Intelligence

• Geospatial

• IoT

• Log Analytics

• Social Analytics

08

Key playersCOMPANY COUNTRY WHAT IT DOES SOLUTIONS

GoFindAI

http://www.gofind.ai/

GoFindAI uses Nvidia’s CUDA and GPUs to train

deep learning models on over 20 million images

from 600+ US-based ecommerce stores. Once

trained, the app’s intelligence analyzes patterns,

structures, styles and other details for

recommendations.

• AI-based image search engine for shopping and media. Features include Pay Per

Sale, easy integration, user behavior insights, stock outs monitoring, monetization

and social media.

• Anna, a virtual fashion assistant chatbot that helps you discover your latest fashion

statement, search by image or text and get instant responses on your fashion-related

queries.

Focal Systems

https://focal.systems/

Focal Systems deploys patented Computer Vision

technology via an easy-to-use tablet mounted on

shopping cart handlebars. The tablet helps in real

time out of stock detection for retailers, digital

advertising for advertisers and deal finding for

shoppers.

• Out of stock detection

• Indoor location finder

• Shelf analytics

• Auto-checkout

• Computer vision consulting

09

Key investmentsVenture investing by category Average funding by category

Source: Venture Scanner data as of September 2017

10

Why BootUP?Serial EntrepreneursA majority of the founders working at BootUP are serial entrepreneurs who have built multiple companies and achieved no less than a few exits. The BootUP experience is personal and high-touch, providing the opportunity to interact with seasoned entrepreneurs who have built numerous high-impact startups.

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NetworkA majority of the founders working at BootUP are serial entrepreneurs who have built multiple companies and achieved no less than a few exits. The BootUP experience is personal and high-touch, providing the opportunity to interact with seasoned entrepreneurs who have built numerous high-impact startups.

Corporate InnovationBootUP drives innovation for leading corporations by scouting for emerging technologies and by running vertical acceleration programs. This provides opportunities for BootUP startups to do pilots, drive sales, access corporate venture capital funds and potentially become acquired.

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