CAN AI SPARK GROWTH AND JOY FOR OFFLINE RETAIL?

The hype around 10-minute delivery apps and online retail in general often blinds us to the still-relevant truth that even today, more than 85% of global retail sales still happen through physical stores.

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This is classic availability bias- we're surrounded by people who rave about ordering everything from groceries to the latest smartphones online, even as the number of people buying the exact same goods from physical stores is actually a significant multiple of online shoppers.

This is not to say that the Internet or smartphones have not changed how we shop online and even offline. Increasingly, consumers use online searches and smartphone apps to find or decide which store to visit. A significant majority of offline transactions now start online with a search, a quick reading of reviews or a quick check of store or branch open hours on Maps.

This behaviour is so pervasive today that the disconnect between discovery (online) and fulfilment (offline) has actually become offline retail's biggest barrier to growth. However, AI and Gen AI are now emerging as powerful forces capable of finally bridging this gap by bringing data-driven intelligence, personalization and precision to what are otherwise highly complex digital-analogue interactions.

Retail's digital divide