In recent years, this retail giant has led the whole industry to make full use of technology to build its own business and provide better services to customers. This is due to its large number of patent applications, its position as the second largest online retailer in the United States, and its large investment in retail technology and innovation.
O2O leads innovation.
Lauren Di Seger, vice president of customer experience engineering at Wal-Mart Labs, said
Desegur) said: "We have essentially created a bridge to enhance the shopping experience through machine learning. We want to ensure that customers' online and in-store experiences can be seamlessly connected. "
Although Wal-Mart's nemesis in the retail industry may be Amazon, it can use its online and offline tentacles-the company has 65,438+0.1.0000 physical stores and can also provide online shopping experience-to develop various retail technologies to improve sales and customer satisfaction.
Wal-Mart has long used RFID technology to track inventory, and has also set up a store named "Store No.8" in Silicon Valley.
8) Incubator, "Incubate and invest in startup companies, and develop their own proprietary robots, virtual reality and augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies with venture capitalists and academic institutions."
Wal-Mart recently set up a "pick-up office" in its store.
Tower), a self-service device with the size of 16x8 feet, can be conveniently placed in front of the store for consumers to retrieve online orders. Users can also directly scan the bar code of online orders, and then they can see their purchased goods appear on the conveyor belt within 45 seconds. Up to now, users' feedback on these "jack-up towers" is very positive, because it is more convenient than the traditional jack-up method.
In addition, Wal-Mart also wants to use "scan and go"
Shopping) technology to improve the user experience. Customers of pharmacies and money services can also use Wal-Mart's application to handle the checkout process, so as to speed up the entry and exit of the store.
If it develops further in the future, you can also use computer vision like Amazon Go concept store.
Sensors and machine learning to completely cancel the checkout counter. In addition, Wal-Mart has used machine learning to optimize the distribution path.
Don't like queuing?
Wal-Mart can use facial recognition technology to find and evaluate dissatisfied consumers, which has an important impact on its operation process. With the help of machine learning technology, we can identify the dissatisfaction of the queuing crowd through facial expressions, so as to send more cashiers to handle the checkout, and finally analyze the changing trend of consumers' shopping habits.
20 15, Wal-Mart also tested this technology to find and avoid theft.
Monitor the use of labeled products
What's next? Judging from the patent documents submitted by Wal-Mart, it seems that their next step is to integrate the Internet of Things label into products, so as to monitor the use of products, automatically replace products when necessary, and monitor whether products are expired or recalled.
These technologies will rely on technologies such as Bluetooth, barcode radio and RFID, and can provide Wal-Mart with massive data (603 138), including the time when products are used and the location where products are stored at home. These data are helpful to make personalized advertisements and expand cross-selling opportunities.
If you have a tag reader installed in your refrigerator, you can scan all the products in the refrigerator and remind you when it needs to be replenished or is about to expire. In addition, RFID system can also monitor the number of times you buy washing powder and predict the possible remaining amount. This information can be added to your shopping list and then help Wal-Mart analyze user behavior.
Although the patent has been submitted, it remains to be seen which technologies Wal-Mart will deploy and apply to all users. But one thing is certain. There is no reason to think that Wal-Mart will slow down the deployment of machine learning, Internet of Things and big data in the short term. After all, it can really improve their performance and user experience.