Article

Retail's BIG Show is BIG on Technology

Customer/Employee Self-Service Terminals are the focus of the first day's session in the first day of the National Retail Federation show in New York.

January 16, 2003 by Craig Keefner — manager, Olea

NEW YORK -- The National Retail Federation's BIG Show got rolling today and everywhere you look technology is touted as the means by which retailers will be able to obtain those micro-degrees of differentiation that they seek. The education sessions in the morning were all very well attended but the highlight of the Sunday sessions was the Super Session: On-Demand Retailing, sponsored and hosted by IBM.

Craig Keefner, Publisher, Kiosks.org Association

After a very nice entertainment opening with a Harry Belafonte/Florence Henderson type show, Tracy Mullin, NRF president and CEO, spoke. She noted the nine Super Sessions and the expanded exhibit hall and that NRF has seen a 20 percent increase in exhibitors this year. NRF is huge.

The very large meeting had more than 3,000 attendees and David Petiford, general manager, Global Retail Industry, IBM, followed Mullin and gave a wonderful talk using highlights from the just-published study conduct by NRF and IBM.

Petiford noted lackluster holiday sales and the reduced earnings forecast but then also noted the uptick in online sales and the 20 percent increase in gift certificates. His forecast is for another challenging year. Then he went straight to the new study, which provided a wealth of information, and in my eyes was extremely encouraging.

By far the most prevalent trend in the customer base identified was that they are value-oriented. Fifty percent of the responses were that this is extremely prevalent.

The second identified finding regarded what technologies are being used and/or expected to be widely used in their stores. The candidates were kiosks, PDAs/Handhelds, self-checkout terminals, smart cards, key fob and biometrics. Kiosks were the overwhelming winner. Either being used or will be used in the next two years or six years, more than 80 percent favorably responded with kiosks. Interestingly, the technology with the lowest response of "will never be used" was PDAs and Handhelds.

Personal note -- At that point I realized that for some reason I had zipped my Polartec jacket over my press credentials which had me titled as "Publisher, Kiosks Association". Suddenly it seemed like a real good idea to pull it outside my jacket where everyone could see it. No more stealth mode for this technologist!

Other interesting stats were that only 18 percent of stores provide any type of store maps. Only 15 percent offer any type of simulation or education (that might be for previewing colors and styles in scenario layout) and only 20 percent provide employees with access to customer purchase records.

Rounding out his talk, Mr. Petiford seemed to set the first priority squarely on serving the customer, but also on serving the employee. To close his talk Petiford listed the three imperatives to succeed.

1. Transforming the Customer Experience and ensuring that there was seamless access across all customer "touchpoints."

2. Taking out Costs. He noted the recent initiatives by Wal-Mart with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and also their efforts to save fractional cents on credit and debit transactions. (This is covered in a recent article posted to Kiosks.org on Wal-Mart and their bank initiatives and also on ATM Marketplace).

3. Enabling Employees.

For a full report on the results/data-metrics from the IBM/NRF study see Newsbits on http://www.kiosks.org. I'll be publishing a more in-depth look at all of those as soon as time permits.

Next up in the Super Session was a panel with Tom Cole of Federated Stores, Jean-Paul Giraud of Fnac (France), and Dennis Masden, president and CEO of REI. Forrest Sawyer, the well-known anchor with NBC and MSNBC and PBS, moderated the discussion.

The highlight here was the very, very positive enthusiasm which Masden called out for REI's  kiosks and how bringing their back office technology out to the customer was providing them with a much better multi-channel environment. Technology came up again and again as the means to differentiate. Multi-channel was a standard punctuation point.

It was a wonderful first day at NRF and my big thanks to NRF for allowing me to cover this truly BIG event! Now I have to get ready for the Opening Night Reception being held at the Marriott Marquis. It promises to be a very large and exciting party. I might even take my badge...