What's New in Retail from the National Retail Federation Show

Chainlink Research's CEO Shares Her Opinions of the NRF Show

By Ann Grackin

RFID in the retailer and consumer space ultimately will have to be decided by the customer, but the buyers of the solutions will be suppliers and retailers.

Competition for wallet share grows fiercer for stores as the web grows, and competition for brand loyalty also grows as new geographic market leaders leap into the global market.

Unless a technology in retail can solve a few select set of problems, it won't fly. "Increase my sales," "Make my workforce more productive," "Increase my margins," "Help me get more revenue per square foot." These goals are couched in terms like "the customer experience" or creating "destination sites," but it's all about the cash.

So how will RFID in retail show me the money? Let's look at how RFID solutions from January's NRF (National Retail Federation) Show in the Big Apple met some of those goals.

The Customer Experience

It is true that retailers grapple with huge temporary - sometimes inexperienced - workforce, plus a part-time one. So that means they are challenged because customers want service, answers to in-depth technical questions, help finding things, and advice. That is hard to achieve with huge workforce turnover. Enter technology into the process. Now your "Shopping Buddy" is here to help you, or the "Personal Sale Assistant ," the "Dressing Room Concierge," the "Freedom Shopper," line busters, (dealing with long check lines), self checkout, and Pay By Touch. These phrases are increasingly becoming part of our everyday vocabulary.

Have you ever noticed that the product names imply that they are "here for me"? I know these products of the not-too-distant future (like now) are good economic buys for retailers. It must work for them. It has to enhance productivity, efficiency, reduce shrink, increase sales, and improve throughput, etc. in some measurable way, or the retailer would not invest in these solutions. They also must solve the customer's problems, too, or they will never get to add those benefits. Customers will reject these technologies out of hand, so they truly have to enhance the customer's experience.

So people are out and devices are in. The Concierge allows dressing room customers to not worry if they have collected all of the correct pieces, the right sizes, and so on. Once I have accepted that I am no longer a size four, I can request of my Concierge to go get me the size six (or maybe eight, just to be sure).

I saw two of these types of systems, from the two competing alliance clusters, Life Scape (www.litescape.com/products) in the Cisco cluster (www.cisco.com), leveraging Cisco IP infrastructure, and one from Attevo (part of the Motorola cluster), leveraging their inshore wireless solutions. All of these systems rely on UHF RFID as the item identifier.

A note on this term "cluster" used here; the lines have been drawn between the Motorola community and the Cisco/Intermec community in this wireless world. And that was in full display at the show. They were even on separate sides of the conference hall!

It makes sense for retailers and many of types of industries in the same situation to leverage their existing wireless infrastructure. So these new products frequently can sit on top of existing investments in network, wireless, etc. Retailers can truly pick from the best configurations of what appeals to them.

The Freedom Shopper makes self check-out easy, keeping track of a customer's purchases through the use of RFID.

Back to Shopping!

Now I have my size six pants and matching top. So it's onto self check-out, where Freedom Shopper comes in handy. Freedom Shopper (www.dagosi.com) uses Alien Technology readers and tags (www.alientechnology.com). It already has the information of the item I left the dressing room with (the Concierge drops a little message off to the check-out system). However, there were these really cool socks I picked up on the way to the exit of the store. That's okay because about eight feet away, Freedom Shopper displays a list for me: "So, Ms. Grackin, how do you want to pay: cash, credit, or coupon?"

It turns out I want to use all three. I was given a VISA giftcard for $25 from a friend, so I want to use that. I have the 10% off coupon and I will pay the difference with cash. Freedom Shopper can handle all that, and I am out of the store within a few moments. Plus I have my loyalty points accumulated on my account.

The technology works, so how fast will it get adopted? Self service is not a new concept. We have it from web, to sports, to transportation (parking, public transit, and airports). Isn't it amazing how fast the self check-in at the airports took hold?

The Concierge ensures that customers have collected all of the correct pieces and sizes of an outfit.

Supply Chain Effectiveness

Intermec had some great products also on display that dealt with the challenges of the stock room and warehouse as well as store front operations. There was a variety of RFID attachments and enhancement to forklifts, smaller, light, and/or more ergonomic readers; and better techniques for laser guided reading at great distances.

I liked the convergence of communications on much smaller wireless "readers." Video from the store can be sent to the wireless device. Using this system, the user can see operations throughout the entire store and communicate with other employees to direct activities and perform a plethora of daily operational activities.

These improved converged platforms create a merger of backroom and storefront devices, reducing the old model of separate kinds of devices for each application. This allows the management of these devices to improve significantly. Devices today can be provisioned from a central location rather than one device at a time, either from the store sever or, better still, from central/corporate or a third party web service provider.

Remote management and diagnostics, downloading of new applications, and security/authentication can be managed with significantly more efficiencies in this way. This saves money, keeps devices in operation, and offers better return on assets. That's an easy buy!

Ann Grackin is the CEO of ChainLink Research. She can be reached atagrackin@clresearch.com. Visit www.clresearch.com.