For consumers, pop-up stores are seen as exciting and exclusive. If shoppers live far away from a brand’s physical store, pop-ups can be an opportunity to experience the brand and interact with it in a new way outside of the online shop. The benefits for retailers are also tenfold. Pop-up retail is a low-risk way of testing out new markets or products. The reduced overhead for rent, utilities and inventory allows retailers to further…
The Future of the Physical Store: COVID-19 and Beyond
The future of physical stores has been a key topic of discussion long before the pandemic. You’re likely familiar with the phrase “retail apocalypse,” which originated when the steady number of store closures led the industry to believe e-commerce was the future. And there’s no arguing the unprecedented growth that e-commerce saw as a result of COVID-19.…
Do Prices Influence Online Returns?
The option of free returns is a major value proposition for online shoppers, ultimately delivering a sense of security that increases the likelihood of purchase. What’s more, free returns are now the norm, with 55% of online retailers offering them. However, returns can be costly for retailers. Processing returns results in additional expenses and logistics, from paying for shipping to managing inventory restocks for an…
Dynamic Pricing: Three Critical Questions Answered
Retailers are facing increased pressure by major brands like Amazon, Target and Walmart that offer “everyday low prices.” They’re realizing that in order to compete, they need faster, more responsive pricing strategies. Enter dynamic pricing. It’s a daunting and intensive process for retailers to keep track of thousands of prices. In addition, they must also determine how best to optimize…
How to Maintain Critical Touchpoints in a Contactless World
Traditional shopping methods have taken a backseat to online traffic growth as a result of COVID-19. According to Digital Commerce 360, U.S. consumers spent $861.02 billion online in the U.S. in 2020, a 44% increase compared to 2019. Now, there are many ways shoppers engage with retailers beyond associate assistance…
Five Strategies to Creating a Personalized Customer Experience Online
According to Forrester, more than one-third of U.S. online adults want retailers to do more to offer them personalized experiences. In the years after the turn of the millennium, simple algorithms implemented recommendations such as “customers who bought this product, also buy these products,” but over time personalization made its…
How Omnibasket Establishes POS Flexibility for Developers
A new POS implementation is one of the most expensive IT investments a retailer can make. It requires executive approval and must be done seamlessly so no business is lost in the transfer process. As a result of a retailer’s reluctance, they are often stuck with a POS system that…
Beyond the Forecourt: Mobile Offerings as a Key Driver for C-Stores
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a shift away from restaurants as indoor dining options halted. It also put a temporary pause on self-service food offerings in the store. This was an unexpected benefit for convenience stores, as consumers wanting fast to-go options preferred pizza, burgers and…
Why Retailers Benefit From Using Headless Commerce Technology in Store
Headless commerce has been a major topic of conversation for several years, particularly as it pertains to how retailers can achieve flexibility as they interact with customers via an ecommerce site. This year, the prominence of ecommerce has skyrocketed because of COVID-19, a reality that has not been more…
2020
Top 4 Payments Predictions for 2021
COVID-19 has changed much of consumer behavior and expectations when it comes to payment options both in store and online, and many of these changes are expected to stick moving forward. As we begin a new year, we predict the four payment trends that will become even more prominent in…
5 Tools for Mastering Dynamic Pricing in Grocery
One of the key reasons retailers are focusing on dynamic price adjustments is the ever-increasing volatility of the market and the growing competition. Customer demand and the availability of certain products can change daily, making it almost impossible to run a meaningful forecast of purchase behavior based on typical seasonal…
The Role of POS in Hospitality
In 2019, off-premises dining accounted for 60% of restaurant occasions. As a result of the pandemic, hospitality must be prepared for this number to continue to rise and remain permanent. What’s more, we’re finding that an increasing number of retail verticals are offering prepared foods and food service in order…
Meet Omnibasket, the New Collaborative Developer Portal that Empowers Cloud Innovation
Imagine any point in a customers’ journey with a retailer: the shopping basket should be present through every step. The reality is, this is often difficult to achieve, especially because needs are often developing more rapidly as developers have time to build solutions. We’re looking to change that. Omnibasket…
New Customers and Partnerships Illustrate How GK is Transforming Retail in the Cloud
The cloud has made it possible for retailers to offer new services and conveniences in their stores that were previously impossible. For example, the ability to centralize customer data from across channels and devices, as well as process that information quickly, allows retailers to reach individual shoppers with personalized messages.…
Black Friday 2020: Five Tips to Increase Sales
As you know, many factors will be different this holiday sales season, as retail is facing major challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Brick-and-mortar stores in particular are struggling with a sharp drop in sales. Online retail, on the other hand, saw growth: U.S. ecommerce sales grew more than 30%…
Cracking the QR Code to Advance Contactless Experiences
Since March, the way we shop has changed drastically. While not a new concept, “contactless” retail has arisen as a buzzword as retailers work to keep customers and employees safe. It’s now an essential feature in order to attract in-store shoppers and maintain consumers’ trust. Luckily, achieving contactless processes in…
Dark Stores Bring New Light to Grocery Efficiency
Dark stores are quickly becoming a must-have for grocers looking to improve efficiency and customer service in today’s market. A recent survey found that 68% of shoppers purchased groceries online for curbside pickup or delivery during the pandemic. This surge in online shopping has led many stores to temporarily turn…
Three C’s for Grocers to Achieve a Successful Holiday Season
As a result of the pandemic, holidays like Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, as well as events like company parties, will likely have a virtual aspect to them. However, as friends and families remain distanced, the need to connect will be stronger than ever. Whether consumers are looking to keep old…
Three Ways Retailers Can React to an Unprecedented Holiday Season
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that this holiday season will be unlike any other. And it will be high stakes, too – one in five retailers say their future is dependent on how well they do this quarter. Major concerns include if, when and how consumers will…
5 Ways Dynamic Pricing Can Help the Consumer Electronics Industry Succeed
While our last dynamic pricing blog dealt with industry-specific features of dynamic price optimization in the fashion industry, today we’ll look at consumer electronics. The consumer electronics industry is one of the most challenging because of demand and competition. In order to survive as a retailer here, dynamic price optimization…
How Convenience Has Changed
The last time you were inside a convenience store, you may have been making an impulse purchase — a soda or a snack while you were filling up your car. Convenience stores are synonymous with spur-of-the-moment purchases, but now during COVID-19, that type of spontaneity can be rare. As a…
The Best Weapon in the Fight Against Food Waste
Food waste is a massively pressing issue in the grocery industry. Shockingly, about one-third of all food produced goes to waste, according to the United Nations. Recently, The Consumer Goods Forum, consisting of 14 of the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers, launched a Coalition of Action on Food Waste to…
What Restaurants Can Learn from Grocery Innovators
Restaurants have suffered as a result of the pandemic, as many dining rooms have closed or operate at a reduced capacity. Restaurants of all sizes have had to adapt, modifying existing models and introducing new processes that streamline online ordering, payments and pickup or delivery. And it’s proving effective. Restaurant…
App or App-less Technology? That is The Question
It’s now been a decade since the ubiquitous iPhone phrase “there’s an app for that,” was first uttered. And with more than 8.93 million mobile apps available globally, it’s a phrase that’s held up well over time. But the popularity of apps means the market is now extremely saturated, and…
Satisfied Customers: Why We Do What We Do
Software providers can talk and talk all day about what makes their offering the best. But hearing from a retailer who implemented the technology and is actively seeing benefits with their customers is the true testament of value. The future of retail is developing at a rapid rate today, with…
How Dynamic Price Optimization Benefits Fashion Retail
In the last dynamic pricing blog on coupons and bundles, we touched on industry-specific differences that can be crucial to a retailer’s success. Now, let’s take a closer look at one specific vertical: fashion retail. Fashion retail offers great potential for dynamic price optimization because the average margins are comparatively…
Contactless Concepts Are the Forefront of Retail Innovation
According to research from the National Retail Federation and Forrester, since January, no-touch payments have increased for 69% of retailers. Of those that offer contactless payments to customers, 94% expect the demand to continue increasing over the next 18 months. COVID-19 has caused an aversion to physical touch in an…
What Do Successful Retailers Have in Common?
No two retailers are created alike. Their customers’ unique needs and the type of services they offer will lead to different strategies. But at the core of all successful retailers lies one idea: they understand the importance of being able to conduct retail efforts anywhere, at any point in time.…
Brick and Mortar’s Next Chapter: Frictionless
When thinking about a consumer’s shopping experience within a brick and mortar store, retailers’ efforts are often segmented into two differing approaches: a focus on scanning and contactless, or immersive and personal technology. Contactless versus immersive tech Scanning and contactless technology work to drive convenience and cut down on time…
Steps to BOPIS Success
Recently, we published a blog on the new look of buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) services post-pandemic. We explored how a flexible, standalone BOPIS solution can make integration and deployment easier than ever. This is essential as BOPIS has become a critical service for many retailers to generate sales while…
Coupons and Bundles - Success Drivers for Crucial KPIs
When it comes to dynamic price optimization, the three crucial KPIs are sales, profit and purchase frequency. In pricing theory, it is said that in principle, any two of the KPIs can be raised together, but never all three. If you look at a single item, this might be true.…
The EMV Deadline Has Been Extended: Now What?
Visa has once again delayed the EMV deadline for fuel retailers. This time, from Oct. 1 2020 to April 17, 2021. But what does this exactly entail? Given disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the six-month extension provides retailers much needed additional time before the liability of fraudulent transactions shifts from…
Headless Commerce is Next Frontier for Enterprise Retail Platforms
Modern retail demands flexibility and control. Especially in verticals such as grocery and convenience, consumers expect retailers to make it as easy as possible for them to get what they want, when they want it and how they want it. Thus, the more high-value services a retailer can provide, the…
The New Look of BOPIS
This probably isn't your first time reading about how COVID-19 has served as a catalyst for technology adoption across retail. But what hasn't been addressed is whether or not specific consumer behaviors embraced during the pandemic will turn into habits that last long-term. For example, as retailers worked to keep…
To Achieve Frictionless Retail, Both Edge and Cloud Computing Are Necessary
To achieve a future of frictionless retail, retailers must first be able to understand when and how to leverage centralized cloud infrastructure and when to defer to decentralized edge networks in the store. While the adoption of the cloud has led to unprecedented enterprise agility and intelligence, there are many…
The Future of Frictionless
We’ve spent some time looking at the types of shopping behaviors and trips that define the overall retail landscape, the unique areas of friction that create frustration for each one, and the roadblocks for achieving frictionless retail. We’ve concluded that in the context of both online and in-store retail, true…
Common Roadblocks to Frictionless Retail
We recently discussed how shopping behavior impacts frictionless needs and the technology options retailers should consider to eliminate pain points in the shopper journey. Consumers expect a seamless journey at all touchpoints, and if a brand fails to deliver on this, they will lose to their competitors and fail to…
What Do Dynamic Pricing Systems and Recommendation Engines Have in Common?
At first glance, Dynamic Pricing Systems and Recommendation Engines may not have too much in common. Dynamic Pricing is meant for targeted price optimization so a retailer can sustainably grow revenue and profit. Recommendation Engines, on the other hand, ensure that customers receive excellent online service, even though there is…
Frictionless Technology Options to Address Your Shopper’s Unique Pain Points
In our last blog, we explored how shopping behaviors impact frictionless retail needs. We looked at eight different types of purchases that uniquely affect the shopping experience a customer expects. We also explained the common friction points retailers need to address for each of these customers. Today, we’ll identify…
Intelligent Markdown Pricing – Why a Targeted Approach is Essential
Markdown optimization is one of the topics that retailers are particularly interested in because it holds significant promise and value for all segments. Because markdowns – and especially write-downs – limit gross profit, it is important that retailers proactively manage their sales and keep them to a minimum. However, the…
How Shopping Behaviors Impact Frictionless Retail Needs
A retailer’s business processes and technology should be executed so that they consistently deliver a seamless shopping experience, regardless of where or how the consumer shops. While all consumers create hierarchies of needs and preferences when choosing where to shop and which retailers to return to, there are surprisingly few…
How to Optimize Prices Using AI
One of the reasons why retailers increasingly rely on AI-based Dynamic Pricing is the huge amount of data and influencing factors that need to be considered for price determination, including product master data, purchase prices, sales quotas, inventory levels, competitor behavior, promotions, real-time transactions, historical data, seasonal trends, regional factors,…
GetMyGooods: Instantly Deliver BOPIS Service
If you haven’t heard already, we recently launched GetMyGooods, an app that plays a critical role enabling simple grocery ordering and pickup while ensuring the protection of everyone involved. The app is designed to provide retailers a way to instantly deploy buy online, pick-up in store service by eliminating the…
Using Dynamic Pricing Successfully
Our recent posts have explored the margin benefits retailers can achieve with the help of price elasticity insights, including how to generate a better understanding of an entire product line and how to price it accordingly. Differentiating a product portfolio into roles, such as common and focus items versus basic…
Price Elasticity and Its Role in Strategic Assortment Analysis
In our last blog post, we explored the concept of price elasticity and the benefits it brings to AI-driven price optimization. Now, let’s explore how price elasticity can be used to create a strategic basis for an AI pricing solution. With the help of price elasticity, you can determine exactly…
Price Elasticity - The All-Rounder for AI-Controlled Price Optimization
In this blog, we’ll explore the concept of price elasticity, arguably the most important concept when it comes to AI-enabled price optimization. What does price elasticity do? There is no other approach that works as efficiently, economically and sustainably as price elasticity. What is particularly remarkable is that it…
Reinforcement Learning – What Distinguishes a Real AI from The Wannabes
Clearly defining the construct of artificial intelligence is difficult, if only because the term intelligence alone can hardly be clearly defined. That's why AI is frequently used as a buzzword. However, there are some very decisive technological nuances that make the difference, especially in economic terms. Machine Learning is the…
Approaches to Dynamic Price Optimization, Part 1: Rule Engines vs. AI-Controlled Price Optimization
One of the more common, traditional approaches to establishing price differentiation comes in the form of rule-based systems, or rule engines. They implement predefined pricing rules in a prescribed pattern. These systems often set item prices exclusively based on competitor prices, which the system’s rules are set to exceed or…
What is Dynamic Pricing?
Dynamic Pricing is the proven “corner store” principle – rethought for the digital age. Small corner stores always used a somewhat volatile pricing policy based on experience and gut feeling. For example, close to closing, they generally offered bread or fresh products at a discount in order for the retailer…
GK Software's Coronavirus Response
Given the current situation with the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s important to us that you know we have taken numerous measures to ensure your health, the health of our employees and the smooth operation of our customers' stores. We are diligently following the recommendations of global government and health authorities in…
