EuroShop, the World’s No. 1 retail trade fair, is returning to Düsseldorf in February 2023. Lenovo OEM Solutions together with the AI and Retail teams will be present to show the latest Lenovo solutions for retail. Digital transformation is essential to creating retail businesses that win in a hyper competitive marketplace, Lenovo is ready to level up their business with advance solutions for better consumer experiences and operational excellence.
Today’s digitally fluent consumers are more demanding than ever. Retailers are challenged to deliver big box efficiency and savings packaged in a boutique experiences. Shoppers want choice and convenience, they are looking and buying online and off. After a boom in online retail spending due to the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce penetration across all categories continues to grow. For example, online sales in US retail jumped 40 percent year over year in 2021. But consumers are increasingly taking an omnichannel path to purchase, about 75 percent of US consumers are researching products and making purchases in both brick-and-mortar and online channels.1
How are retailers evolving to meet rising consumer expectations while also enhancing operations? Navigating through self-checkout, sales floor and backend operations, Lenovo has all the solutions our customers’ stores needs to thrive. Lenovo developing cutting edge hardware and collaborating with specialized ISVs to grow a best-in-class ecosystem of Lenovo OEM validated retail solutions. Our offering includes global management and support services tailored for retail applications in over 180 countries.
During EuroShop 2023, Lenovo will display some of the solutions it offers to help retailers create smarter experiences and operations.
Cold Chain Management
An estimated $600 billion worth of food is lost during or just after harvest. But manufacturers and grocers can do more to transform their businesses for the benefit of consumers and the planet.2 IoT solutions are being used by food retailers globally to monitor and manage critical machine health and could be leveraged even further to help build resilient and robust strategies for the industry.
Lenovo has teamed up with IMS Evolve to offer to offer industry leading IoT solutions for multi-site retailers, uniting visibility and control and driving unrivaled enhancement of the store environment. Customers can collect and harness real time data from devices, such as thermostats and refrigeration systems, to better manage cold supply chains.
Retail Metaverse
The Metaverse could have a $2 trillion to $2.6 trillion market impact on e-commerce.3 Brands are retailers are beginning to explore the impact a persistent, real time virtual shopping experience can offer. Consumers enjoy e-commerce but also crave the social interaction of shopping, the Metaverse offers both. From servers, workstations and edge computing to XR solutions and innovations in AI, Lenovo offers a broad portfolio of technology to build and support the shopping experiences of the future of Metaverse retail.
But Metaverse technologies are not just about the consumer experience, operations can be greatly enhanced as well. For example, using the ThinkReality A3 smart glasses, in-store-personnel can connect with engineers to maintain equipment, such as refrigeration systems, by using remote assistance and guided augmented reality (AR) applications. In such scenarios, when a storekeeper wears the smart glasses, an engineer offsite can “see what he sees” and instruct the instore colleague through a digital overlay within his field of view to adjust systems controls and identify potential issues quickly without dispatching service personnel. For regular maintenance procedures, an AI-assisted workflow AR application can prompt the shopkeeper to complete a series of tasks independently. The AR technology makes the retailer smarter, supports less downtime for critical systems and ultimately better consumer experiences.
Retail Analytics
From supply chain to shelf and to point of sale, smart retail is driven by data. What is our inventory situation? What are shoppers considering and buying? Can we predict how their behaviors will change? These are $23 trillion questions.4
Tools like edge-enabled smart cameras and sensors can capture the data that drive smart business. Shopper behaviour analytics not only provide retailers with the ability to deliver personalized advertising to their shoppers to increase their purchase total but can also use dynamic pricing or real time promotions to increase consumer spend. In addition, data analytics can offer insights to improve store planning by placing goods in more optimal locations and improve checkout intelligence to decrease costly store theft.
Lenovo delivers powerful shopper behavior insights to grow customer value with AI-powered analytics, seamless POS integration, and an easy-to-use browser-based user interface. Among the solutions offered, Lenovo’s computer vision interference enabled by the Intel® OpenVino™ toolkit provides analytics on customer engagement, store traffic, shelf inventory and more.
Digital Signage, Self Service, and Electronic Labels
Smarter technology can simplify pricing and content management to drive labor efficiency and accuracy. But more importantly, research shows that it can also increase sales. Retailers can increase the average check size by up to 15 to 20 percent if they replace in-person counter service with smart kiosks, simply by optimizing technology to draw customers and sell to them.5
Lenovo offers solutions for dynamic pricing with zero latency, real-time promotion to enhance in-aisle and end-cap conversions, and integrated inventory and pricing provide a single view for staff. By connecting, automating and analyzing data from a shop’s basic functions of storing and displaying merchandise, retailers have the ability to maximize uptime, ensure stores runs seamlessly. For example, Lenovo collaborated with Intel and Instorescreen to create the store of the future featuring dynamic digital storage. Lenovo is also partnering with Admira for digital signage, dynamic pricing and other solutions to deliver smarter retail campaigns.
Come and experience Lenovo’s solutions for the future of retail innovation. Visit Lenovo at EuroShop 2023, Hall 6, Booth G57 from February 26 to March 3.
1 McKinsey – E-commerce: At the center of profitable growth in consumer goods
2 McKinsey – Reducing food loss: What grocery retailers and manufacturers can do
3 McKinsey – Value Creation in the Metaverse
4 Expert Market Research – Global Retail Market Outlook 2022
5 Inside Retail – How digital signage and kiosks can help stores match the online experience and Kiosk Marketplace Census Report – Rapid growth returns in 2021 as consumers embrace self service
