Helping retailers solve ongoing store challenges

By Yogesh Kulkarni, Zebra Technologies, VP Srategy. The Modern Store by Zebra, is a framework designed to help retailers solve the most pressing challenges they face in operating their stores. Backed by comprehensive services and a global partner ecosystem, The Modern Store by Zebra empowers retailers to better engage associates, optimise inventory and elevate the customer experience.

Retailers worldwide are facing critical challenges, especially store operations executives and the mandate they carry for rapid transformation, post-pandemic. The comprehensive Modern Store by Zebra framework addresses physical retailers’ current pain points and meets each retailer where they are on their modernisation journey.

This includes supporting the needs of shoppers, who in Zebra’s recently issued 15th annual Global Shopper Study, preferred easy returns (80%), getting in and out of stores quickly (76%), and order delivery to home (75%), as well as a growing affinity (90%) for self-service technologies such as self-checkout or cashless payment.

This latest channel innovation will help drive more engaged associates and optimised inventory to enable retailers to improve productivity and deliver a better customer experience. Designed to support retailers’ long-term success, it features modern mobile devices and complementary capabilities, like advanced communication and collaboration, optimised workforce management and streamlined task management solutions. It ensures inventory is accurate across all channels, available and easy to locate in stores without undue burden on associates.

It also removes friction from critical inflection points to make shopping experiences easier and more enjoyable, from browsing to checkout and purchase. Ultimately, the Modern Store by Zebra will help retailers close the gap between planning and execution for labour, inventory and customer experience plans, giving retailers the ability to drive success today with the agility to forecast and adapt for tomorrow.

It will leverage Zebra’s comprehensive partner ecosystem – including over 10,000 partners in 100 countries – supported by complementary integrations from three global tech leaders – Accenture, Google and Microsoft. Zebra’s retail customers now benefit from tighter integration with the leading front-line worker collaboration platforms – Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace – and its growing portfolio of retail software solutions are now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

The Modern Store framework will help retailers select the ideal mix of hardware, software and services from Zebra and its retail-ready ecosystem to help them achieve their desired outcomes. For example, retailers can reduce product waste shrink rates by 27%; reduce employee turnover by 8; and increase customer satisfaction scores.

According to our Global Shopper Study, these outcomes align with surveyed retailers’ top priority to improve inventory management when investing in retail technology. Additionally, most retailers (84%) agree leveraging technology and mobile devices attracts and retains more store associates. Retailers can now address their current business challenges while also preparing for the future.

– Receive the Retailing Africa newsletter every week • Subscribe here.