The wave of digital technology sweeping through retail continually gains force, aimed at promoting retailers’ operations and efficiencies, and creating a more fulfilling consumer shopping experience.

Retailers are increasingly turn their brick and mortar locations into digital hubs replete with such technologies as contactless and cashierless payment, personalization stations and artificial intelligence that can help guide purchases.

Accelerated integration
In some cases, though these technological upgrades they’ve been constantly under development, their implementation has been accelerated by the global pandemic.

“We have been investing and planning the capability to support online volume” in stores via QR codes, AI and other technology and for curbside/in-store pickup, Target Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke said earlier this year. “We just thought it would be three years from now. So we have seen an acceleration for what we would expected to take three years” in a matter of weeks.

Among changes we have observed as brick-and-mortar adapts to a digital world:

• Amazon last week introduced a biometric device that will let a shopper pay at Amazon Go stores using their palm as a confirmation “device.” The Amazon One is a “contactless” scanner of sorts that, after a credit card is inserted, requires customers to hover their palm over the device so a palm signature can be matched with a payment mechanism. Once the card is on file, customers will be able to enter the store by holding their palms above device for a second or so.
  Amazon earlier this year also opened its first grocery store in Seattle, WA,  that incorporates the “Just Walk Out” technology that’s been piloted at 25 Amazon Go stores. Shoppers use the Amazon Go app to scan in as they enter the store and then shop as usual with cameras and sensors tracking items they take from shelves and adding them to a virtual cart.

• Nike has been moving quickly to expand its direct-to-consumer business at the same time as it trims distribution at some retailers, including Amazon in 2019 and Dillard’s, Fred Meyer, Belk, Zappos and others this year. For example, it opened a Nike Rise store in Guangzhou, China earlier this year that shows off men’s, women’s and children’s apparel and footwear in a digitally-enabled environment. At the store, customers can, with the Nike Rise app, access real-time inventory and request items with a bar code scan. AI technology is used to recommend the right shoe size
  “We’re already seeing member checkout at our Guangzhou significantly outpace the rest of the fleet,” CEO John Donahue said last month. “This is just one reflection of how digitally enabled our future of retail is.”
• Walmart has long worked to integrate ecommerce into its omniretail playbook – it purchased com for $3.3 billion in 2016, and shut it down as a separate operation earlier this year. Last week, it unveiled a new store design that emphasizes customer usage of the Walmart app. The design, which has been tested near HQ in Bentonville, AK, has both self-checkout and contactless payment, including Walmart Pay. Several stores also have Scan & Go where customers manage checkout through their mobile phones. The design is being rolled out to 200 locations by the end of January, with plans to expand to 1,000 locations within the following year.