Technology for the Fashion and Luxury industry – how IT solutions are revolutionizing Retail

Whether it be custom software, artificial intelligence, virtual reality or augmented reality, increasingly advanced tech solutions have brought lasting changes to Fashion and Luxury industries.

In difficult times such as these, it is becoming increasingly obvious that new technology has an important role to play in guaranteeing business continuity. As such, it is now essential to have a presence on digital channels and to be equipped with suitable tools and strategies.

Customer relations and sales point management now find themselves having to deal with the challenges of digital transformation while keeping pace with the latest marketplace trends.

Continued growth in pursuit of a customized experience

In one of its latest analyses, ThoughtShift, a British digital marketing agency, reminds us that the global luxury sector has seen its sales volumes grow year upon year, reaching a value of 260 billion euros.

Within this ever-changing context, we estimate that online sales will represent 19% of total sales by as early as 2025.

Fashion and luxury retailers have numerous innovations to tackle. We have found that:

• 43% of consumers prefer businesses to customize their shopping experience, while more than 48% say they would spend even more if provided with this sort of experience;
• 74% of people have a negative view of being shown irrelevant content, while they appreciate suggestions for products they are interested in;
• forecasts suggest that 85% of customer interactions will take place digitally by the end of 2020. Companies will instead opt to use chatbots, machine-learning and AI solutions.

The impact of digitalization on the fashion industry

In view of the above, tech innovations are both powerful and essential allies when it comes to facing the profound changes experienced by the fashion industry.

Roger Lay, Digital Marketing Lead at Deloitte, has summed up the aforementioned challenges, remarking that the role consumers play has developed, passing from that of passive onlookers to that of a dominant force in the purchasing process.

What customers want now is to interact with and influence the brands they buy, and the exponential growth in digital technology has given them a decisive means to do so. For example, a clear majority of consumers now use digital channels before, during, and after the purchasing process.

For fashion brands, overcoming the digital divide – whereby digital offerings become out of sync with or are too generic for a company’s image – is now a vital part of protecting brand values and reputation.

Fashion companies need to re-design their shopping processes for the digital world, so that they can both manage and own it, rather than limiting themselves to digitalizing processes that were originally developed for the physical world.

Bizeta, serving the fashion and luxury sector

With turnkey projects and flexible solutions to suit omni-channel contexts, Bizeta can meet all of the above needs and more.

For a world undergoing profound transformations such as the fashion and luxury retail sector, a platform such as Vision Commerce Suite – which is able to construct new purchasing paths – can create exclusive mobile customer experiences while strategically bringing together different retailer channels, making it an essential ally when seeking the best response to digital transformation.