Category Archives: Scoop.it

News from the retail automation sector

The automated retail industry is one of the two core technology showplaces today (financial Services being #2).

    • Emerging technologies such as robotics, lockers, digital signage, vending and automated vending lead the way.   Amazon and Google revolutionize physical delivery. OuterWall has another great idea (or not).
    • More mature retail technology includes interactive displays, next-generation POS,  mobile interplay, multi-touch, kiosks for self-service, video services, and customer service technology.
    • Companion technologies include ATMs, kiosks, Advanced ATMS,  NFC and thin client.
    • Standards – here we have more regulatory guidelines in play along with more standards than any other industry. PCI, OPOS, JPOS, MPOS,  HIPAA, ADA, UL, CE just to name a few.

The End of an Era At Walmart

But the retail giant is rightly focusing on the future.

Source: www.bloomberg.com

It’s pretty amazing that executives are finally willing to take poor results on the chin and veer away from precedent in order to morph the company from a mostly brick-and-mortar operation into one that serves customers the way they want to shop — whether in stores, the web, on mobile, or a mix of all three. And if these investments work, they could position the company for another half-century of retail dominance.

The new Apple Stores show how compelling in-store can be

Apple is touting its newly redesigned Apple Stores, and they are indeed quite impressive. Conceding that the very nature of Apple’s stores (very limited inventory, complete control of key products, customers who walk in already willing to buy, etc.) makes them hard to compare with a Walmart, Target or Macy’s, they are demonstrating what an in-store experience can be like. Retailers would be well served to take note.

Source: www.computerworld.com

The product displays are trivially nicer, with deep wood colors, but what is striking is a 37-foot, high-resolution display (Apple Insider put the cost of the display alone at $1.5 million per store) that commands attention from passers-by to come into the store. It’s bold and bright and attention-demanding, which is a nice store-ization.

Retail’s struggles with improving in-store checkout

With all of the effort by retailers to lure shoppers into their stores, one would think that granting those customers an easy and painless exit would be a priority. One would be wrong.

Source: www.computerworld.com

A few years ago, Walmart made an impressively clever attempt, leveraging mobile in-store. That experiment, which never got beyond the experimental stage, had shoppers scanning every item as they placed it in their cart. Then when it came time to check out, they would use the self-checkout lane. But instead of rescanning every item, they would display a single barcode from the Walmart trial mobile app that would quickly tell the POS every item being purchased.