What grocers need to know to succeed in the digital era

With a drastically changing retail landscape that’s full of new innovations and shopping experiences, now is the time for grocers to create pick their direction for the future to not only deliver shopping experiences customers have come to expect but create new shopping experiences they’ve never seen before. No matter what size your grocery store is, you have the power and opportunities to optimize your store operations while providing a variety of shopping experiences and methods for customers that will keep them coming back.

Here’s what you need to know to create to make your grocery stores succeed in the digital era.

Don’t let your retail technology hold you back

Consumers’ definitions of what makes a great shopping experience is constantly changing. To get ahead and stay ahead, grocers need to understand the experiences shoppers want and deliver them. Whether your shoppers are looking for contactless payment, curbside delivery, in-store ordering, traditional checkout, or any other shopping or payment method, you need the flexibility to scale and evolve. And when your technology is adaptable and scalable, you don’t have to incur the cost of ripping and replacing your entire technology infrastructure down the line when it’s time to implement new systems, peripherals, or advanced technology. A broad range of retail technology that is designed with the future in mind can make that possible:

Traditional, attended checkout: With reliable, flexible point-of-sale systems and receipt printers, you can deliver fast, personal experiences that many customers find familiar and comfortable.

Customer-driven self-checkout: Helps you better allocate associates to assisting customers elsewhere in the store and gives shoppers who want it privacy and control over their own checkout process.

Kiosks: Enable a full self-service experience anywhere in the store and creates new opportunities for self service in areas such as deli & bakery ordering. Kiosks can also make it easier for associates to quickly assist shoppers who are using self-checkout.

Mobile Operations Manager: Improve the efficiency and visibility into your operations with virtual lane monitoring, real-time transaction status, easy intervention management, and dashboard activity tracking. 

“ 67 percent of grocery customers list the speed of self-service checkouts as the reason why they chose the option.
Today’s self-service shopping journey: the new retail expectation, PYMNTS/Toshiba Report

Make sure your technology is designed for the grocery environment
So what should you look for when selecting these solutions? A critical feature is retail-hardened design. Generic office-grade or consumer-grade hardware that’s been repackaged for a retail environment just isn’t tough enough for grocery stores. Your technology needs to be retail hardened; designed to handle spills, lint and dust, vibrations and impacts, and constant cleaning so you can keep your lanes open for your customers.

      
Support your business with a top-notch services provider
A robust services plan can mean the difference between long lines of frustrated shoppers and customers breezing through checkout and interaction points. The best service providers act as an extension of your team, a trusted partner that takes the time to understand your business, goals, and strategy and uses expertise and experience to guide you where you want to go. From deploying new self-checkout solutions to routine day-to-day tasks or even comprehensive wall-to-wall maintenance, partnering with a service provider helps ensure that your systems are efficient, reliable, and maximize your operations in ways that benefit both your business and your customers.

Act today, but plan for the future
With the right retail technology, you will not only be equipped with the solutions you need today to deliver the experiences your customers expect, you’ll also be prepared to easily adapt that technology and add on new hardware and software without redoing your entire infrastructure. With Toshiba’s portfolio of POS hardware, software, and expert services, you’ll have a partner that will understand the direction for the growth of your business and create the right strategy for you that addresses your retail needs today and prepares you to easily evolve your solutions with new technology in the future that gives your store a competitive advantage.

1. RIS News Grocery Tech Trends Study (2020)