While retail stores everywhere continue to be under pressure, especially from the increasingly powerful influence and pull of the online space, they are also being helped by new technology. Key technologies being implemented just in recent years are helping stores turn things around and make their businesses more profitable and more successful than ever.

Here is a sample of some of the most powerful technologies that are helping the retail sector right now:

1. Analytics and Feedback

Online retailers have long used customer data and feedback to enhance their customers’ experience. It was long an advantage of the online space, but now is available to brick and mortar stores as well. For example, if you look for a Kepler retail sensor for your store, you get this intricate system of data and analytics that can also trigger automatic actions when certain milestones or data points are reached.

Data feedback of this kind, and other kinds, informs store owners in real time about what’s going on in their business, allowing them to make better, faster and more effective decisions on inventory, staffing, opening and closing times, ordering, product placement, and much more. Data can even be provided on where customers are in the store at given times, as well as on item tracking, allowing even deeper and more accurate insights to store owners.

2. PoS Systems

Advanced point of sale systems allow for customers to pay for their items faster, which cuts down on queueing times, but also lets retail stores do more to collect customer data. These systems can make collecting and using customer information easier, which in turn allows stores to inform customers of special offers for products they may be interested in, perhaps via SMS text message.

These systems also help store owners to manage stock, and also track which stock was bought in-store and which were bought through digital channels, which brings us to the next technology.

3. eCommerce

Getting into eCommerce is easier than ever thanks to new online website services that make the act of building an online store a pretty simple drag-and-drop kind of process that almost anyone with basic computer skills can handle. Even putting it into the hands of freelancers for a small fee is affordable, fast, and produces even better results.

These eCommerce platforms can then be tied into the stores regular PoS system, boosting revenue and allowing stores to sell to customers from further afield. The eCommerce space is no longer just for the giants.

4. Augmented Reality (AR)

AR systems are increasingly being introduced to different types of retail spaces. Two common applications are using AR to help create “virtual fitting” in clothing stores, and using AR to help customers find their way around large retail premises.

We all like the retail axiom “try before you buy.” Who would buy any item of clothing without trying it on to check fit and look first? But at the same time, who has time to line up for a dressing room? AR allows customers to simply hold up their phone to items and it shows them on-screen using their own full-body photo of what they would look like in these clothes.

For navigation, customers who are looking for something in particular but who don’t see a staff member to help can hold up their phones in the store where navigation instructions will appear as if by magic on the screen.

5. AI-Powered Inventory Management

How many times in the past have store managers and employees missed out on key commercial opportunities because they didn’t get orders submitted in time? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now helping this situation with AI-powered systems that can detect what inventory is low, and use data from aforementioned analytics systems to determine when orders need to be made to secure in-demand inventory at the right times.