How IoT Will Save Retail

“Retailers are losing a ton of business today and I don’t know that they really understand how much of their shopper base moves where they purchase because of that inability to really deliver what they want when they want it.”

That’s the way Joe Jensen, VP of the Internet of Things Group and GM of the Retail Solutions Division at Intel, sees it.

As Jensen explained to MPD CEO Karen Webster, the explosion of connected devices and data fueled by IoT will also bring on some dramatic changes to retail economics. Next year, that explosion is expected to connect as many as 6 billion devices to the Internet – devices that Jensen says Intel is working hard on to help physical retail remain relevant with an increasingly digital shopper.

Jensen says that enabling merchants to very “affordably and much more simply” have greater insight into what is actually happening in the retail environments helps them understand what shoppers are doing based on how they move through the store. Analytics can help to predict what consumers want, which in turn can empower retailers to offer more relevant and meaningful offers.

The idea is that the use of IoT technology can bring back the visibility into the retail experience that many large-scale retailers are missing and help solve for the inventory issues that may be costing retailers big time.