Metaverse seems to be the buzzword ever since Facebook announced its name change to Meta to highlight the company's focus on building a Metaverse. This led to an avalanche of interest in Metaverse-related projects with global Google searches for "metaverse" going up by 7200% in 2021. Total investment into Metaverse has already reached $120 billion in the first five months of 2022. 

They say that no one likes being sold to, but everyone likes buying.

More than 20 years ago I worked with algorithmic and heuristic-based supply chain management solutions. These were aimed at harmonising and optimising the disparate data signals that at that time emanated from siloed systems which, in the main, were either ‘challenging’ to integrate and in some instances, probably all-but impossible to do so. 

I recently engaged in an interesting discussion with an internal Mastek colleague who was investigating the impact of online returns in an omnichannel retail environment. Retailers have to cope with delivering a seamless customer experience across the expanding channels of operation and grow their businesses whilst ensuring customer retention through continual satisfaction.

This means that the technical and, increasingly, digital solutions which support these operations perform together flawlessly to provide a holistic experience for shoppers for whom ‘brand loyalty’ is fast becoming a thing of the past.

Use technology and retail sense to reduce your cost per acquisition

We’ve experienced yet another retail ‘Black Friday’and with it, stories about inconsistencies across fulfilment channels. This includes stories about some retailers’ inability to deliver goods sold and price variations for SKUs purchased through different consumer media. 

Retail businesses are desperate to realise greater value and insight from data. More data is available through significant system investments, such as in ERP, system upgrades and network integration, however digital value derived from these systems is often limited. The move to being a more agile, digitally enabled enterprise can create challenges of a different nature, where visibility is actually reduced and functions are disconnected with limited interpretation of events.

An early Easter a shorter than usual period between the Christmas trading rush and the traditional start of spring here in the northern hemisphere.  And, once again we’ve been monitoring the latest trends in Retail technology and highlighting what has gained the most momentum over the past month.  So, here goes: