5 most interesting ideas in retail

Kirill Malyshev, director of the Sales and Marketing Strategy practice at Reksoft Consulting, spoke about the main trends that are key in retail today.

Pay with a smile

X5 Group and Sber have launched a new “smile” payment service. In 2023, this could already be done at 15,000 self-service checkouts in 4,100 Pyaterochka and Perekrestok stores.

A similar payment service is also used by the Moscow metro, and if these services show their demand among consumers, the technology can be used in many sectors of the economy. In fact, payment using biometric data takes a few seconds, which is comparable to regular payment with a bank card or phone, but for this you do not need to keep any of the above on hand.

Virtual assistant for ordering products

Yandex virtual assistant Alice now helps you order groceries in Lavka using your voice. It generates a list and can also track the status of order fulfillment.

Virtual assistants have also begun to be used to pay, for example, for mobile communication services. The technology is very promising; if you think about the security of such payments, the service will be in demand in many areas.

Technology for using electronic price tags instead of paper ones

Dixy is currently testing electronic price tags from Russian developers. This is a significant saving of staff time on updating physical price tags in stores, as well as a reduction in queues at checkouts when the price for an item is “incorrectly” determined. Previously, electronic price tags were not used due to the high cost. But domestic manufacturers have developed technology that should have an acceptable cost for a large scale of purchases. If the tests show an acceptable result, then this technology has a good chance of being replicated, given the number of retail outlets in Russia - Russia’s largest chains had about 100 thousand stores in 2023.

"Smart" refrigerator for ordering products

Amazon has been working for several years on a smart refrigerator that tracks its contents, analyzes regular purchases, and adds items that are nearing the end of their shopping list. The technology has not yet been fully developed, but it is potentially very interesting and promising, as it significantly reduces the time it takes to make purchases from consumers. Increasing the accuracy of purchase recommendations from the “refrigerator” side, as well as the affordable cost of the device itself, will provide ample opportunities for mass use.

Autonomous store without staff

This format has been tested in many places and continues to be tested, including in Russia - the first projects of stores without cash registers and sales staff were launched by Visa, Azbuka Vkusa and Sberbank. This format has not shown its economic efficiency due to the increased incidence of theft and non-payment for goods. And the implementation of this technology is still quite expensive. Many companies continue to believe in this format, but the question arises of changing customer behavior.

The most promising trend seems to be the closure of physical stores and the transition to an online format - this market in Russia is growing more than 30% per year.