3 Key Takeaways from NRF: Retail’s Big Show

NRF: Retail’s Big Show, one of retail’s most influential events held in New York’s Javits Center every year, spotlights the voices of the industry from all over the world. Bringing together thought leaders, exhibitors, and keynote speakers, NRF unveils and demonstrates retail’s latest and most advanced innovations and technology solutions to thousands of attendees over the course of a 3 day event.

Consumers at the heart of the retail industry and retailers continue to advance their operations to cater to evolving customer needs. NRF 2023 reflected this perfectly, with attendees being treated to a range of technological innovations that focused heavily on improving the overall customer experience while easing the jobs of in-store associates with user-friendly solutions. This strong focus was encapsulated in New York by three key trends: streamlined supply chain operations, high quality customer interaction and seamless point-of-sale (POS).

1. Driving Supply Chain Efficiency 

Streamlined supply chain is highly beneficial for driving operational efficiency and reducing cost burdens. However, it also plays a key role in enhancing overall customer experience and satisfaction. NRF 2023 showed clearly that the demand for improved supply chain solutions is significantly rising. Retailers in 2023 are looking to take advantage of cutting-edge solutions that improve supply chain efficiency and provide retailers with better control and visibility over inventory and order management.

To ensure a smooth-running supply chain that can enhance customer experience, retailers must lean on integrated solutions. For example, Teamwork Commerce’s Order Management System (OMS) can easily be integrated with wider retail technology allowing an automated and seamless flow of communication between both offline and online. This further helps retailers in effective decision-making with a single-pane view of their retail ecosystem.

2. Improving Customer Interaction

In today’s competitive retail panorama, retailers must deliver high-quality customer interaction to stand out from the competition. Attendees at NRF interacted with a range of fascinating solutions, such as display technology, previewing adventurous holographics and virtual try-on solutions.

The importance of visual technology in customer interaction plays a key role, but NRF also clearly demonstrated that harnessing data remains a key priority for retailers in 2023.

To rise above the competition and ensure top-tier customer-interaction, retailers must have access to appropriate information about their consumers – such as their shopping behavior, purchase history, and preferences – in real time. Teamwork’s secure Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system enables retailers to do exactly this. When deployed in combination with Analytics and Reporting, the solution allows retailers to enhance the value of their data and curate shopping experiences. Furthermore, store associates can visualize customer purchasing habits at their fingertips with Teamwork’s all-encompassing software. This further helps them offer exclusive earned benefits to their customers. All of this can come together to positively impact the overall customer experience.

3. Frictionless Point-of-Sale

In the past few years, retailers have been putting significant effort to improve consumers’ checkout experience and advancing their point-of-sale has remained a key priority. The continued evolution of POS systems have enabled retailers to cater to consumer needs – such as contactless payments and minimized queues through mobile POS solutions.

NRF made it evident that the evolution has not stopped yet. Attendees bore witness to a number of innovations that will revolutionize the checkout process in the near future, including Teamwork Commerce’s demonstration of RFID powered self-checkout.. The self-checkout technology allows customers to instantly scan all items in their basket at once, within seconds, and reduce checkout times – all thanks to RFID tags and software.

Further to this, Teamwork Commerce’s early demonstrations of Tap to Pay on iPhone, which allows retailers to accept payments on their iPhone without any extra terminals or hardware, also drew in large crowds at the event. NRF 2023 clearly demonstrated that POS technology has much more to offer to the retail industry, despite its significant development in recent years. It should certainly be on the radar of all forward-thinking retailers in 2023.

Looking Ahead 

NRF unveils new innovations in the retail sector and sets retail’s course of action for the rest of the year, and 2023’s event did not disappoint. As retailers gear up to gain a competitive edge in the market, technology is certainly going to be a driving force. Whether it’s to streamline supply chains or to make the checkout process simpler – the appropriate integrations are likely to be the key factors to driving operational efficiency and high quality customer service. Teamwork Commerce helps retailers across the globe with an all-encompassing retail solution that is designed to meet retailers’ needs in 2023.

Schedule a demo to find out how we can help your retail company implement an omnichannel strategy that meets the expectations of today’s customers.