Retail & Technology
Technology Trends
in the Retail Arena
Presented by Scott Koegler
Editor of ec-bp.org
scott@ec-bp.org
Retail & Technology
The Shifting Landscape
• Retail is an old and well established industry
• Based on simple principals
• Rules of supply and demand
• Sources of distribution
• Basis of the supply chain
Is Technology Necessary?
• Retailers have always relied on some
forms of technology
• Payments and receipts
• Credit card processing
• Item pricing
• Inventory control
• Order processing
Technology Expands
• Beyond the basics of managing the sales
process
• Vendor interactions
• Employee management
• And all the other back-office tasks
• Store management
• Stocking levels
• Plan-o-grams
Beyond the Sale
• Promotions
• Customer behavior
• Regional trends
• Buyer preferences
Analytics Change the Game
• Combine data
• Aggregate data sources
• Critical mass
• Spot what is not obvious
• More data is available
• Easier to collect
In Store Systems
• Checkout
• Scanning / pricing
• Coupon and promotional
systems
• Video surveillance
• Cart monitoring
• Employee monitoring
Inventory Control
• Beyond stocking levels
• Theft
• Retagging
• Missed checkout
• Evolution Robotics Retail (www.evoretail.com)
• LaneHawk – BOB
• Defect management
Store-Level Video Analytics
• Cisco’s Analytics with Scopix
• www.Scopixsolutions.com
• Monitors via video and analyzes
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Sales floor activity
Employee levels and engagement
Checkout queues
Customer reaction to promotions
Stock outages
• video
Major Tech Areas
• Supply Chain
• Customer Interaction
• Place of Business
• Cost Containment
• Optimization
Supply Chain Tech
• Electronic order processing
• EDI
• X12 standard documents
• Dominant format in retail
• Mandated by major retailers
• XML
• Initially thought of as a replacement for EDI
• No incentive to change from EDI to XML
• Used internally and between closely related
trading partners
Order Visibility
• Knowing where the order is
• At what stage
• Is it complete, or has it changed?
• Open / proprietary systems
• Connecting the chain
The Role of SaaS
• Internet-based systems
• Allow connection from anywhere on the globe
• Can be deployed to very small operations
• Can be localized for language requirements
Centralized Data
• SaaS allows for centralized data collection
• Aggregation of data from multiple trading
partners
• Possible to perform analysis on large pools
of data
• No need to move or convert data
Supply Chain Tech
• Replenishment cycles
• Delivery and destinations
• Distribution centers
• Direct to customer
• Direct to store
• Transshipping
Customer Interaction Technologies
• Started with advertising
• New forms of connecting
• Advertising model has changed
• Economies of advertising have changed
The Customer Has Changed
• Customers expect to be treated
as people… again
• Personalization and
individualization
• Direct contact
• Knowing / remembering
preferences
• Respecting lifestyles
Discovering the Individual
• Impersonal interactions with customers
• High volume stores
• High employee turnover rates
• Transient customers
• Multiple store locations
Personalization
• Technology applied to ‘knowing’ the
customer
• Loyalty cards
• What I ‘like’
• What I want
Tracking Preferences
• Loyalty cards
• Impersonal but personal
• Catalina Marketing
• Largest database of customer
purchases
• Real-time transaction analysis
• 3-year transaction history
• Presents coupons based on
history
• Not just current purchases
• Linked with SAS analytics
Retail Places of Business
• Change in the location of transaction
• Traditional
• Physical store
• Print catalogue
• Phone
Emerging Places of Business
• Emerging
• Web/online catalogue
• Specialty sites
• Facebook
• Smartphones
• Tablet computers
Increased Order Complexity
• Single-order location made easy delivery
• Multiple and changing order locations
• Multiple and changing delivery destinations
• Increase the complexity of the supply chain
The Circuitous Supply Chain
• Shipping to retail location for delivery
• Shipping to DC then to store
• Shipping to customer
• All require different routing, content, labels
• Tech involved is expanded EDI services
• Produce labels at point of packaging
• Create packing contents based on order
• Display retailer’s brand
Optimization
• Targeting customers
• Inventory levels
• Store activity monitoring
• Staffing levels
• Shelving and locations
• Direct shipping
• Order visibility
• Advanced analytics
Analytics
• Video analytics
• POS data
• Consolidated EDI data analytics
• Customers
Customer Sentiment
• Customer sentiment tracking – semantics
• Tracking social media – Twitter, Facebook,
• Blog seeding (watch out for SEC rules
about freebies)
Targeted Promotions
• Geotarget
• Smartphone ads
• Google goggles – augmented reality
• Facebook – “I like”
• Traditional “what I'm looking for” like Google
• New tracker-based “beacon” selling your
activity
• Immediate results and big market
Biggest Retail Tech Changes
• Knowing your customer
• Communicating with your customer
• Optimizing the supply chain
• Maximizing profit
• Continuous improvement through analytics