Huawei announced smart technology for retail campuses, stores and multi-branch interconnection at last month’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

The series focuses on smart stores, intelligent warehousing, energy efficiency and digital marketing. It employs wifi, storage, cloud and IoT technologies to help retailers increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve consumer experience.

The retail industry is closely intertwined with people’s daily lives. Business owners must not only stay abreast of evolving consumer needs but also tackle a range of operational problems. These include managing inventory, foot traffic, marketing strategies and costs. Consequently, the retail industry’s digitalisation as well as its intelligent upgrade are both gaining momentum.

The smart setail series Huawei released at MWC consists of four scenario-specific offerings. First, the smart store option comes with cloud-network-security integration and the converged deployment of access points (APs) and electronic shelf labels (ESLs). It uses SD-WAN and Wifi 6 and 7 to deploy high-quality networks. The AP plus ESL package can improve operational efficiency.

Secondly, intelligent warehousing delivers a goods inventory system that combines IoT, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and RFID. This facilitates automatic goods sorting and visualised management, streamlining warehouse logistics.

With the energy efficiency offering, IoT sensors can help intelligently adjust air conditioning and lighting in shopping malls, saving energy and cutting emissions. This includes a multi-purpose gateway that integrates six functions and is for slashing energy consumption.

Finally, digital marketing allows corporate groups to obtain foot traffic statistics and other management information from every store they operate. They can use this information to optimise store layouts and implement precision marketing based on big data analytics.

These offerings have been used by large retail chains in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Looking ahead, the Chinese firm’s smart retail series (e.huawei.com/cn/industries/retail) should fuel the digitalisation and intelligent upgrade of retail companies, ultimately bringing more enjoyable shopping experiences.