Look to Wi-Fi for Digital Transformation in Retail

CIOs in the retail sector are increasingly looking to location analytics provided by sophisticated Wi-Fi marketing solutions to address digital transformation.

This is the view of Wade Gomes, Sales Director of Corr-Serve, a local value-added distributor that represents Cloud4Wi in the South African market, a leading provider of location analytics and marketing solutions.  Research firm, Forrester, uses one of Cloud4Wi’s clients, the Prada Group, in its report: “Digitally Transform In-store Experiences with Sensor-Based Technology and Analytics”, as an example of a retailer creating superior in-store experiences using Wi-Fi.

According to Forrester, “Retail stores have been living in an analytical ‘dark age’ compared with digital channels, relegated to measurement techniques that rarely consider customer behaviour. However, advances in in-store customer sensor and analytics technologies are transforming how digital business professionals and retailers win, serve, and retain customers within the physical store.”

Cloud4Wi offers an AI-driven product suite for location analytics. With Cloud4Wi, retailers can collect anonymized customer insights through their in-store Wi-Fi services. For customers who opt-in, retailers can create unique customer profiles that include offline behavioural characteristics — and do so in compliance with GDPR.

“Prada provides a good example for retailers looking to boost customer experience and improve customer onboarding by providing free Wi-Fi services to in-store customers — and to use the Wi-Fi signals to track in-store behaviours,” adds Forrester.

“South African retailers have an enormous opportunity to improve customer experience by leveraging the power of analytics when providing in-store or in-mall Wi-Fi services,” concludes Gomes.

Edited by Daniëlle Kruger
Follow Daniëlle Kruger on Twitter
Follow IT News Africa on Twitter