Enhancing Customer Shopping Experience with Indoor LBS in Retail Stores

Indian Retail sector has seized every opportunity and has evolved over the time from weekly markets and fairs towards a more organized form of supermarkets and malls. Evolving mobile technologies are now implemented in every field including the retail markets. This paper is focused on the how the field of telecommunications can be leveraged to enhance the customer shopping experience using Location Based Services in the Indian retail space. Location based Services are set of applications which use the position data of a person or object to provide with relevant personalized information. These find vast use for Navigation services, Geo-tagged news, Gaming, Social networking and Advertising. Organized retail in India over the past four years has shown a CAGR of 19.5%. One stop stores like the Hypermarkets is the new trend with huge shelf spaces and large product lines because of its enhanced efficiency and customer experience. But, this scale also induces challenges for both the retailers and the customers. The following are the list of challenges faced by customers and the retailer • Matching the exact needs of the customers without much wandering [Navigate] • Absence of exact match of requirements [Availability] • Providing accurate and timely information/updates [Dynamic] • Uncertainty on the availability of the product [Update] • Lack of knowledge on the arrival of the stock and managing inventory [Efficiency] • Retaining customer base and keeping them involved [Engage] Many retailers are already using the RFID technology to increase supply chain visibility, manage stocks and supplies efficiently. With LBS, retailers have whole new set of services to offer to customers and improve their shopping experience while at the same time leveraging this technology to increase revenues and maintain loyal customer base. Creating the right eco-system and implementing right mix of Wifi, LBS and smart devices for customer services, retailers can evolve the local malls to Smart Malls.