The retail industry has been beset by many challenges in recent years. In addition to recovery from the pandemic shutdown and consumer spending uncertainty, restaurants and other retailers have to meet consumers’ “need it now” expectations while dealing with labor shortages.
According to JLL’s “Going Labor Light: Designing a Tech Forward Format” write-up, self-service formats are providing a solution. “While self-service formats today represent only a small percentage of most brands’ experience portfolios, the next five years could see a radically expanded degree of penetration as labor shortages continue,” the report authors pointed out.
Self-service formats involve consumers relying on digital tools such as touchscreen kiosks and mobile apps to make purchases. Meanwhile, employees are on hand to assist consumers and support operations.
The JLL report explained that the technology first emerged in the restaurant industry and grew in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to touchless and online ordering. Meanwhile, retail’s reliance on robotics and automation started at the warehouse level. Today, “automation can be seen seeping into retail from specialty to mass, enhancing the effectiveness of lean labor teams,” the report’s authors wrote.
Examples include:
- Target’s implementation of generative AI with its Store Companion chatbot
- BJ’s Wholesale Club’s Tally, an intelligence robot that roams store aisles to collect data
- Walmart, which continues its expansion of a drone-delivery pilot program in the Dallas-Fort Worth region
The report observed that moving forward, “brands will be incentivized to invest in automation, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) at scale.” Quantum computing will improve data collection and analysis, AI-embedded mobile apps will provide text-to-action approaches to shopping, and robotics will handle mundane and dangerous tasks. But the human touch will still be evident. “Brick-and-mortar stores must retain the human element that differentiates the physical location from online,” the report noted. “Even the most sophisticated technologies cannot fully replace employees without compromising the retail or restaurant experience.”
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