AI for Business: What Do Experts Have to Say for Aussie Retailers?
There’s no doubt that AI is one of this century’s biggest disruptors, impacting most areas of business. From ad targeting to automated customer support, the retail sector is at the forefront of these changes. And with no signs of slowing down, retail businesses that do not look at integrating and adopting AI into their business face the harsh reality of losing market share, customers and even becoming obsolete! It’s a scary thought, especially for small businesses that may be new to the market or are operating on tight margins.
However, if we flip the script on it, AI can be a way to not only stay competitive, but also get ahead and dominate in your particular market.
Let’s look at what AI for business will mean for the future of retail.
How AI is Disrupting the Retail Industry
Here are some of the ways AI is impacting the retail industry.
Personalised Shopping Experiences
One of the key areas of AI intersecting with retail businesses is in offering greater personalisation in a consumer’s shopping experience. With the data-crunching capability, analysis and real-time data flows AI offers, it can provide shoppers with a highly-personalised online shopping experience. By giving consumers what they want as a streamlined and relevant shopping experience, businesses can capture a greater share of the market.
Think about it; if a customer spends less time browsing to find the product that addresses their wants and needs faster than their competitors, they’ll be able to purchase sooner, leaving less opportunity to see what other similar products or services are out there.
Streamlined Customer Support
AI-powered virtual assistants and chatbots offer 24/7 support for sales enquiries, product advice and other forms of assistance that saves both the consumer and business owner time and effort. Even small businesses can benefit from having their customer support functions AI-enhanced, whereby most enquiries can be diverted to AI-based support. At the same time, anything needing specialised knowledge or a human touch can go to a real-life operator.
Marketing Automation and Accurate Insights
AI can replace the guesswork and reliance on spreadsheets and other antiquated methods that are cumbersome, time-consuming and often inaccurate. AI automation for small businesses and large retailers can take trends and data from many sources, provide real-time insights to help your business segment audiences, predict consumer buying trends and recommend specialised channels for communication.
AI’s integration with popular platforms and software means it can automate your email marketing campaigns, create highly targeted ads, and offer real-time reporting for your business. It can also predict and help free up bottlenecks in your supply chain and distribution to track shipments and monitor inventory levels with pinpoint precision.
AI can even influence dynamic pricing by looking at inventory levels, seasonal traffic to websites and consumer demand at any given moment to offer greater competitiveness and opportunity for increased sales. AI for business can boost sales and offer retailers smarter, data-driven price strategies to remain relevant and in business into the future.
Overcoming Challenges for Australian Retail Businesses
Although the benefits of AI for small businesses and retailers are obvious, one of the main challenges will be the cost of integrating AI into their operations.
High integration costs don’t only come from the software itself; they can include the change management and staff training costs as well. Overcoming resistance to change and to the mindset of “we’ve always done it this way” may be more difficult than learning to use the new software itself! Having an understanding of basic change management principles and taking these into account will help overcome this resistance and help move towards AI integration a lot sooner.
Another challenge of incorporating AI into retail businesses is understanding and overcoming data privacy concerns. As this is an area of increased scrutiny for Australian businesses, making sure retailers are on top of the laws and regulations that impact them within an AI environment are higher. Data privacy and data breaches come under increasing scrutiny since AI systems often integrate sensitive customer information. Implementing a robust IT security strategy becomes even more important for retail businesses in this era of AI-powered tools and integration.
Expert Insights from Retail Global
Retail Global’s Retail Fest is the standout conference for Australian businesses to understand industry trends, opportunities and inspiration across a wide area of insights, including AI.
Past Retail Fest events have focused on AI automation for businesses including transforming retail with AI and how to unlock business potential. This is an area that will continue to impact and disrupt the retail landscape well into the future, so Retail Global will continue to provide industry leading AI experts to our workshops and panels.
Why Aussie Businesses Should Act Now
Industry data shows that from 2025, AI will form 95% of all retail experiences across the world. Australian retailers are not immune from this, and the risk of not incorporating AI into their business operations increases the risk of losing market share and falling behind.
To say that avoiding AI altogether is a recipe for disaster is an understatement, especially if businesses want to remain competitive in today’s rapidly evolving market. The old adage of ‘knowledge is power’ rings so true for Australian retailers today. Ignoring AI’s influence and the impact it is having -and will continue to have – is short sighted and a sure-fire way to lose market share and future opportunities for growth.
Stay on top of tech changes such as AI across our retail industry by signing up to Australia’s # 1 community-driven event. Join Retail Fest as a retailer, become a sponsor or simply rock up as an attendee by purchasing tickets here for RetailFest 2025. It’s going to be huge, so don’t miss out!