Digital Leaders that Reshape Retail: What can You Learn from Their Examples?

6 minutes

Digital leaders in retail are actively investing in artificial intelligence, robotics, VR/AR, and other innovations to keep pace with the rapidly evolving market and growing consumer expectations.

A Gartner survey of nearly 2,400 CIOs revealed that 84% of respondents believe that demand for new digital products and services increased in 2024, with 87% predicting further growth in 2025.

Why do retail behemoths such as Amazon, IKEA, Walmart, and dozens of others invest in their digital leadership?

In-store robots fulfill e-commerce orders faster and more accurately;
Data analytics allows to understand customer preferences, increasing conversion rates;
AI and VR ensure better, more engaging, and personalized shopping experiences;
The implementation of technologies significantly lessens overhead and utility expenses;
The proper digital experience moves customers from inspiration to purchase.

In this blog, we’ll tell you about digital leaders who have already transformed the traditional concept of retail.

Nike Live

Nike has put digital at the center of their strategy which has added 70 million new members globally during the pandemic. Their concept store in Melrose Avenue, LA presented nothing new in retail despite one thing: their primary aim was not to sell shoes and clothes but to become a customer-data-collecting platform. A simple analysis of which products they were selling and to who allowed Nike to convert their shoppers into Nike Plus members six times faster than any other store in their network. These customers also spent 30% more on their next online shopping with Nike compared to those who hadn’t visited the store.

Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh Checkout

Amazon has already revolutionized the online shopping experience and now aims at the digital transformation of physical retail in Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh (in the UK). With a combination of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, Amazon can fully automate payment and checkout processes. In other words, as soon as their customers have finished shopping, they don’t have to wait in line to check out, the payment is automatically made through the Amazon Go application.

Walmart Cookshop

An interactive video company Eko produces Walmart Cookshop videos for a digital leader Walmart where its clients can watch cooking videos and customize recipes. The retailing giant stocked the site with 22 how-to cooking videos with chefs and celebrities. The shoppers can make choices to customize the ingredients in each of the recipes and purchase the products needed for the dish from the nearest Walmart store, either for delivery or pickup. Walmart states that the click-through rate of video viewers to the e-commerce features was 8,7% which is over the industry standard of about 2%.

Audi VR Showroom

In 2017, Audi launched its VR experience to allow its customers to explore cars’ interior and exterior and configure their dream car. The initiative was driven by the fact that the process of buying a car no longer begins at the dealership but with a thorough exploration of social media, motor forums, and websites. Audi presented their customers with a dynamic and interactive buying experience, including special “Audi moments” such as the Le Mans 24 Hours race, where users can experience the pit-stop atmosphere.

Burberry Social Retail Store

In partnership with Tencent, Burberry opened the first social retail store that combines a love of social media and luxury shopping. Through interaction with a custom mini-program within the WeChat application, users can learn more about products, book appointments, share their UGC, accumulate a virtual social currency at the same time. Later the currency is used to evolve an animal character on the users’ smartphone screen as they’re moving around the store., guaranteeing users an immersive and interactive shopping experience.

ASOS Localized Experience

ASOS has developed dedicated websites in strategic country markets, customizing wording, pricing, navigation, and imagery that appeals best to certain local markets. By ensuring that their in-country teams provide locally relevant content and purchase offers, ASOS has managed to achieve 27% up with the majority of growth from overseas markets. Today, two-thirds of ASOS customers are based outside the UK.

Home Depot

“Rent Online, Pick-up In Store” technology launched by one of the nowadays digital leaders - Home Depot, allows Pro and DIY customers to check equipment availability, reserve and rent equipment online up to 30 days in advance. The company also extended its multi-year cloud partnership with Google Cloud, continuing to blend their physical and digital environments. For instance, their mixed cart selling adds products from the website and stores into a single transaction, allowing customers to more efficiently serve the project needs.

With a large variety of digital retail experiences to invest in, from localizing the websites and developing feature-rich retail applications to leveraging artificial intelligence, how can business owners know whether the investment will pay off? The answer lies above. Just as Amazon Go was first to implement such tech innovations in their physical stores, retailers need to try out transformational services with their customers.

inVerita helps retailers to come up with new ideas, trial them, and turn them into a full-scale solution with customer experience in mind. Drop us a line to discuss your retail digital leadership.

This article was updated on January 14, 2025.

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