The Store of the Future

I've seen the future, and it is here. Or, rather, it's in a supermarket in Rheinberg, Germany.

And it was also at a trade show exhibit I toured at the National Retail Federation Convention & Expo earlier this year in New York, a collaboration between IBM, SAP A.G., the German retailer MetroGroup and several international electronics providers.

Here's your future: Your shopper logs onto the Internet at home or the office. (I know, retail's worst nightmare. But keep reading.) She calls up your web site and enters her shopper loyalty number.

She then enters various items she'll be needing later that day, and saves. When she shows up at the store, she enters her customer loyalty number into the Personal Shopping Assistant (PSA) attached to her shopping cart, or just swipes her loyalty card, and her shopping list shows up on the screen. The PSA might also provide promotional information. Or information on navigating the store. Or perhaps information on her recent purchases. (“It's been a while since you bought eggs.”)

As she tours the store, pulling items off the shelf and scanning them, a running total of her order is kept on the PSA. The products are equipped with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips. Scanning them provides the retailer's central data bank with information that a product has been removed from the shelf. That way, it gathers buying information and keeps inventory-control information. Out-of-stock situations can be headed off. And the shelves are fitted with electronic price tags – clear, easy to read and updatable.

When she comes to the end of her trip and checks out, it's already been done and paid for, automatically. All she has to do is bag her items and go on her way. She loves it – the efficiency, convenience and speed. And if the retailer is smart, it will love it, too. In addition to managing stock and the supply chain, imagine how much information you'll be able to gather, for merchandising, design, distribution and marketing purposes.

Store designers will also find this information invaluable, in terms of laying out stores, directing traffic flow, strategically creating signage systems, visually merchandising top-sellers or slow-sellers – generally anticipating and responding to shoppers' habits, preferences and demands.

The Store of the Future also contains strategically located 19-inch Electronic Advertising Display screens, providing wayfinding and updatable promotional messages (both still and animated). And it's all done through a wireless local area network, so no cumbersome wiring or cables to worry about.

Customization. Mobility. Efficiency.

True, it's primarily aimed at supermarket shopping right now. But every retailer has aisles and shelves, and more and more have loyalty cards and shopping carts. Plus, as with all technology, it will be improved and expanded, made easier and more accommodating.

For example, an experimental project at Georgia Tech suggests that one day, the shopper won't even have to sit down and enter her list onto the computer. All she'll have to do is say, “out of sugar” or “need socks,” and a microphone in the wall will trigger the computer to transcribe her words to the list.

A few years ago, you probably thought all this Internet-based networking was going to threaten retail as you know it. But you now see the future: It will ultimately benefit you.

Unless you sell pencils.