i3 - July/August 2019 - 17

By Susan Schreiner

Tech

C 4 T R E N DS

Robots Transforming Retail

hoppers today expect convenience, immediate gratification, first-rate customer assistance, easy checkout and a
shared transactional cart across channels.

Retailers are responding by leveraging
artificial intelligence with sensors, automation, machine vision, beacons, voicebots and AR/VR to create new in-store
experiences. Robots are found across the
retail ecosystem from warehousing to
delivery to automated inventory of merchandise. The goal is to make shopping
more convenient, experiential and personalized to improve customer engagement.

Justin T. Gellerson/The New York Times/Redux

The New Salesperson

Imagine being greeted by a humanoid
robot in a store who provides directions, answers questions and hands out
samples. SoftBank's humanoid robot
Pepper is a powerful touchpoint for
creating more personalized instore
experiences. Pepper can also play
music, light up, dance and take selfies
with shoppers.
While Pepper is popular in Japan,
SoftBank wants to bring Pepper to
America. In a 2016 pilot at a Palo Alto
tech shop (B8ta), the retail store
claimed a 70% increase in traffic during the week Pepper worked there. A
second pilot at a Santa Monica
retail outlet claimed a 13% revenue
increase. Shopper's curiosity about
Pepper, along with its responsiveness and engagement, made for a
memorable in-store experience.
Robots can also help to alleviate
consumer frustration by helping
them easily find a product.
Home improvement retailer Lowe's
Innovation Lab has experimented with
the LoweBot from Fellow Robot - a rolling kiosk where consumers can look up
products and other information. In a collaboration with Google, it also has experimented with a GPS-style navigation app
to help customers find merchandise
using detailed floor maps.
C TA . t e c h / i 3

Using Robots to Manage Stores

Robots help stores manage inventory,
restock shelves, address worker shortages and automatically manage logistics. Target is working with Simbe
Robotics' Tally robot to track product
inventory on shelves. Meanwhile,
Walmart is shifting more mundane
tasks to robots to maximize time associates can engage with customers by
adding 300 new shelf scanners, aka
"Auto-S" to roam the aisles to ensure
product availability, correct shelf location and price accuracy.
Walmart is also pioneering new
robotic technologies with Bossa Nova
Robotics. This "friendly" robot has a
small display screen and lighting on its
small body. Walmart plans to continue
to use automation to
build on the chain's
Automation is
omnichannel initiatives
making retail
by adding 900 autoexperiences
smoother and faster.
mated pickup towers.

Automating Tasks

Amazon's fleet of nearly 45,000 robots
fulfill orders at its warehouses.
Walmart's commitment to automation
extends throughout its ecosystem. It
ordered 1,200 FAST Unloaders that
automatically scan, and sort items
unloaded from trucks based on priority
and department. Data sharing between
the shelf scanner and the FAST
Unloader allows for inventory to efficiently move to the sales floor.
Recently, Best Buy decreased shipping time by three days after overhauling three strategically located regional
e-commerce fulfillment centers in San
Francisco, Atlanta and Findlay, Ohio,
by adding bins and robots. Best Buy
worked with logistics system integrator
Bastian Solutions and AutoStore - a
storage system in which bins are vertically stacked in a grid and
retrieved by robots. The process took 12 months to
implement.

Moving Forward

Retailers face some tough
challenges, whether it's relentless pressure for supply chains to
perform flawlessly, efficiently and
transparently, or hungry shoppers
who want immediate gratification
across channels.
Teamwork between robots and
humans will cut costs while increasing
traffic and driving sales in stores.
Retailers anticipate that profit margins
will increase by delivering the best in-store
shopping experience. After all, satisfied
customers generate repeat business.

CONTACT: Reach Susan at
susan@c4trends.com
JULY/AUGUST 2019

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i3 - July/August 2019

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