Can Technology help conventional home lifestyle retailers compete with Ikea, Pepperfry and Urbanladder?

Digital innovation and retail technology has changed the way customers discover and shop products. Today one can find items of all types online. Be it clothing, groceries, or lifestyle products, everything is available on websites like Amazon and Flipkart.

One industry which is currently evolving rapidly is the home lifestyle vertical. Products like furniture, marble flooring, Laminates Veneers & wooden panels, furnishings, etc are long-term investments and high-value transactions. However, we are seeing a rapid transition in customer purchase behaviour in this segment recently. This can be owed to players like Urban ladder, Pepperfry, etc increasing their physical footprint and the entry of key foreign players like Ikea.

• With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence, stores and start-ups are trying to combine the two to provide better shopping experiences for customers. Home/lifestyle retailers especially are stepping up their game in retail technology to stay valid in the competition.

• This is very important as customers too demand more. The earlier generation of customers was impressed with just the idea of purchasing furniture or lifestyle products. However, customers today, or the new generation of customers are more digital-minded. They discover products and are ready to associate value with retailers or brands who help them through retail technology in this process rather than just sell.

In retail segments like Marble and Tiles, Furnishing and Laminates, etc, customers are interested in visualizing whatever they wish to purchase. As opposed to traditional e-retail, software providers like DaveAI are enabling physical retailers in this segment to give the best of both worlds through game-changing retail technology solutions. With DaveAI, retailers offer customers a three-dimensional visualization after aiding them to choose what they wish to purchase.

Artificial Intelligence today enables retailers to provide choices based on the customer’s preferences and responses. The benefit of personalizing is a guarantee that the customer will find what he or she needs or want to purchase.

Can traditional medium-sized retail businesses which constitute a large chunk of the market compete with the purchase experience and aggressive discounts from heavily funded international players? That is something that we will have to wait & see. But it is imperative that they leverage retail technology to evolve and stay relevant to the new age, the digital-minded customer.

About DaveAI

DaveAI is a platform that enables retail brands to provide a relevant and personalized shopping experience to their customers. Dave enables these retailers to showcase their diverse catalogues in each ‘industry vertical’ and help customers choose products that suit their tastes. Dave personalizes every interaction to ensure that the customer has a fulfilling buying experience. The availability of a mobile application or a kiosk-based visualizer with an interactive interface gives retailers to choose a deployment model that suits their business.