Shoppers Stop partners Cisco for digital transformation of its stores

As offline retailers gear up to crack the e-commerce puzzle, they are also simultaneously trying to leverage their physical stores for a better customer experience. Shoppers Stop has been on a digital transformation spree of its stores across India to achieve 20 percent digitally-influenced sales by 2020.

Shoppers Stop now has a partnership with Cisco to help it have a connected mobile and wireless solution in its 80 stores across India. Some of the features in the digital transformation will be a mobile experience and wireless solution for location-based services, targeted advertisements and advanced analytics.  Video solutions will also be deployed to make it easier for Shopper Stop employees to connect, collaborate and make quicker resolutions with colleagues and shoppers. "There is nothing offline today as even the physical stores are connected to the cloud," said Anil Shankar, Customer Care Associate &Vice President - IT, Shoppers Stop.

According to a Cisco report, Reinventing Retail, there is a huge potential for retailers globally to generate more than $506 billion in value through digital transformation. "Retail is one of the top three industries most vulnerable to digital disruption. In retail, insight is currency and these insights help retailers provide a hyper-relevant customer experience and remain competitive in the digital age," said Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and SAARC.

The wireless solution will offer a single view dashboard of connected customers in the store, insights into customer behavior analytics, traffic flow and dwell time analytics, location based services and analytics for effective in-store marketing and in-store tracking, said the press statement.

 "A pivotal element of our omni-channel strategy is to digitally transform our physical stores to provide a seamless and convenient shopping experience. We believe that digitisation is not about just using the latest technology but about enhancing the customer's journey. Cisco Mobility Solution will help us enhance customer experience, gather insights into our customer preferences and optimise our resources to offer enhanced personalised experiences to customers who shop at our stores," said Shankar of Shoppers Stop. Currently, less than 1 per cent of Shoppers Stop sales is from online channels, said Shankar.