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In-Store Technology

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During this past year, there have been significant developments in technologies that will allow retailers to instantaneously know where a product is in the supply chain and how it has been handled. The same can be said for better tracking of customer behavior.

The biggest buzz has been about the emergence of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on products, replacing the more limited bar codes. Fixtures will also be fitted with RFID readers and transmitting devices that send a signal to the stock room when inventory needs replenishment or alert security when an unusual quantity of items has been removed from the shelf.

Stop & Shop, the grocery chain in the Northeast, has been using specialized wireless hand-held devices to track inventory for more than a decade. But within the last year, the company began hooking shoppers' carts into a Wi-Fi network. The device lets customers perform feats like ordering items from the store's deli while continuing their shopping in other areas of the store, and then lets them know when their order is ready.

Metro Future Store, an experimental concept in Rheinberg, Germany, by European food retailer Metro AG, provides customers with a personal shopping assistant (PSA) attached to shopping carts to scan products for payment as they roam the aisles.

REI, the progressive outdoor equipment retailer, has rolled out a new system infrastructure that allows customers an online experience similar to that of visiting an REI store. They can research and order any item and, for their convenience, products can either be delivered to them or picked up at any nearby location. With order-information download at the store, sales associates can ensure the right item has been selected to fit the customers' needs and suggest useful add-ons to their purchase.

And Nordstrom, the purveyor of legendary levels of service, is installing wireless network and stationary terminals that can be a future replacement for the sales staff's personal books, those notepads that associates use to write down personal information about regular customers.

However, before we all jump on the interconnected bandwagon, a few cautionary notes about the traditional evolution of technology advancement.

One, evidence of new technology's effectiveness too often comes from the marketer of the device, not the user. Two, technology is too often created without a purpose in mind.

Instead, let's recall our best or worst retail experience and consider how technology could improve, or even reinvent, the process of shopping. And the customer experiences that are most enhanced by technology have woven the technology invisibly into the fabric of the customer experience.

Making Shopping Easier

The retailer's mission should be to provide information and solutions that aid the customer in making informed choices about products they need or desire. Anything that distracts from communicating that message or process should be eliminated.

Consider some other possibilities for using technology to make shopping easier. In-store systems will be devised that monitor product inventory with the help of RFID tags. When an overstock situation arises, promotional pricing messages flash immediately in the store to move excess product.

And with the use of digital visual-aging technologies, shoppers will be able to evaluate how clothes or fabrics will look after multiple wearing or washing. The information would be instantly beamed to the customer in the store on her hand-held personal shopping assistant.

And that only scratches the surface of what new miracle devices and systems are being developed in laboratories around the world. The challenge for the store designers and their retail partners involves merging the needs of the customer with the potential of the interconnected and information-laden world. Such convergence represents the future of retail.

Jerry Gelsomino is principal of Prospect, a retail image consultancy in Santa Monica, Calif., that monitors emerging consumer behavior and clear vision audits of retail environments for clients. You can contact him at jgelsomino@earthlink.net.

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