Our Hong Kong office organised an evening session on technology and Autonomous Shops with FITCH, the global brand and retail consultancy at Garage Society last Thursday.
Thank you, for sharing the space and for everyone who made time to join us in the evening. We had an overwhelming response to the event as the topic of how technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence has disrupted the Retail scene.
This topic has been trending since Amazon Go opened its doors to the public in January 2018. It only makes sense to hold a discussion on this especially since Hong Kong has long been dubbed as the shopping destination of Asia.
For those who missed the evening’s session, we had the privilege of FITCH Hong Kong’s Technology Director, Marc Lamothe presenting industry insights on the implications of autonomous stores for both the retail industry and consumers. Some of the consultancies retail clients include Bulgari, Fossil, Pricerite and Swire Properties.
Here are three key learnings that made an impact among our attendees:
- Mobile payment will seize control of the market – it serves to benefit both businesses and consumers and can even increase sales and loyalty.
- Checkout bottleneck still exists – despite introducing machines to reduce reliance on human manpower, it did not remove the checkout bottleneck. Asia’s answers to Amazon Go, JD Daojia, Hema, Bingobox, EasyGo, CityBox and Tao Cafe all wonderful innovations, but shoppers still have to check out manually. All except… Amazon Go.
- The monopoly of Amazon – harnessing the computer vision and deep learning algorithms in their man-less stores enable the eCommerce giant to track all movements in the store in a ‘virtual’ shopping cart. No checkout is required. This technology is being patented and so far, no other competitor has risen to their level.
Customer experience should always be of utmost importance when designing for shoppers. FITCH notes that the next five years in retail will be more disruptive than the last fifty years.
For further information on FITCH and what they do, visit www.fitch.com.
Want to receive invites for future digital and technology events?
If you’re based in Hong Kong and have the thirst for all things digital, why not join HK Techneeks? It’s a local community that Cogs Agency Hong Kong supports. We work together with corporate clients in the fields of technology and design to bring you events like these. In doing this, we hope to bridge the digital gap through learning and sharing. Expect a variety of digital topics ranging from the technical aspects to user experience know-how.