{CTO Special} (Zepto) Exploring The Power of Metaverse

In view of Dayal, technology goes far beyond being an enabler. Technology has the potential to cause massive disruption in industries and has been playing this role in the retail industry. Omnichannel is deemed as the future of retail and technology plays an instrumental role in providing omnichannel experiences to consumers.

“One of the big technologies which I feel has been crucial to the Indian retail industry has been the public cloud. The public cloud allows organizations to quickly build and launch products at a rapid speed due to the democratization of server infrastructure and tooling. It also allows a pay-as-you-use model which allows managing costs based on usage instead of doing a large upfront investment,” he said.

The other technology which Dayal spoke about is Big Data and Analytics. “We are living in a world of ever-increasing data and thanks to the technology of Big Data we are now empowered with the tools and power to harness data and get rich and deep insights into consumer behavior, industry and business trends, and forecasting,” he added.

How to Enhance CX?

Speaking about consumer experiences, Dayal stated that there are multifold touch points for a consumer across the retail landscape and technology that can be leveraged to improve these experiences manifold. We can explore how technology can enhance CX across these 3 consumer journey stages.

Inspiration and Discovery: Technology can help this consumer journey both via active and passive modes. For eg: Newer technology mechanisms like Virtual Reality can provide a true lifelike discovery and inspiring journey.

Shopping Experience: Many consumers shop via apps and websites and these experiences can be made much richer and personalized by leveraging technology. If you take the example of e-commerce features like a recommendation, supply chain optimization is now the default standard of the consumer journey.

Post-Purchase Experience: It’s possible to make triggered communications to consumers powered by automated systems and machine learning to improve the post-purchase journey of the consumer. For eg: consumers can connect with a chatbot to learn more about products and get help on returns/ exchanges etc.

Innovation Ahead

Dayal said that he is looking forward to experiencing how Metaverse and blockchain technologies bring about the next big innovations in retail and e-commerce. It may not be far-fetched to imagine the store of the future existing only in the Metaverse and purchases being done via cryptocurrency. While all consumers are comfortable with visiting retail stores, it’s hard to build personalized experiences in physical retail.

“Metaverse has the potential to provide the best of both worlds, consumers can get the rich experience of a traditional retail store in the Metaverse and it also allows the unlimited capabilities of personalization in the entire store,” he added.