One of the significant areas that bricks-and-mortar stores may have to reevaluate is the relationship they have with the online world. Seeing the online world as a sworn enemy might mean that many retailers are failing when they could be prospering.

Many high street stores already offer different payment options – self-serve, self-scan, touchless – and if online payment options like bitcoin, PayPal and the likes were introduced alongside these, retailers could see tremendous benefits. Today’s shopper wants technology in-store that works alongside online technology, to make for a joined-up, seamless shopping experience and stores need to give consumers what they want.

Managing the data around these options as it applies to GDPR will take time to work out, but it’s an important area for high street retailers to explore. Without quick, accessible purchase options, retailers could see the slide in footfall numbers continue, and they might soon come the point when there’s no turning back.

At Quander we have been playing with a lot of emerging hardware and software, such as the Google AIY Vision Kit with our Emotobank project and Dialogue flow to explore how personal assistants can enhance the customer experience in brand experience, retail and events. We have lots of amazing internal projects coming up, so keep your eyes peeled on our social feed over the coming months.