Zebra Technologies Corporation announced the findings of its 17th Annual Global Shopper Study. The study clearly reflects Indian consumers’ expectations from retailers to embrace AI / GenAI to transform their shopping experiences.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are currently viewed as the most helpful with loss prevention, closely followed by cameras, sensors, and RFID. A significant majority of retail associates (84% globally, 72% in APAC, including India) are concerned about the lack of technology to detect safety threats or criminal activity. In response, 78% globally and 80% in APAC (including India) are investing in technology tools to support frontline workers and monitor operations from behind the scenes.
While only 3-in-10 retailers (38% globally and in APAC, including India) currently use AI-based prescriptive analytics for loss prevention, more than half surveyed (50% globally, 52% in APAC, including India) plan to use it in the next 1-3 years for this purpose. Over three in 10 retailers say they also plan to use self-checkout cameras and sensors (45% globally, 52% in APAC, including India), computer vision (46% globally and in APAC, including India), and RFID tags and readers (42% globally, 38% in APAC, including India) within the next three years, specifically for loss prevention.
This should come as a relief to shoppers, as 78% say it is annoying when products are locked up or secured within cases. Adding to that frustration is that it is hard to find an associate while shopping in stores these days, according to 70% of consumers. This resonates with 79% and 70% of APAC shoppers, including India, respectively.
Increasingly over the past two years, the reason why one in five shoppers (21% globally, 22% in APAC, including India) left a store without getting what they needed was due to a lack of available retail associates to help.