Are Thieves Cashing in on Your Retail Plastic?

“Recyclers motivated by green—as in money—have been stealing plastic pallets, trays and crates from retailers and selling them to plastic recyclers,” reports NRF^® Stores^® magazine.

Perhaps now’s a good time for retailers to think about implementing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for container management. RFID smart labels applied to moveable assets such as returnable pallets, racks, trays and bins can help you keep track of their location, reducing loss and lowering operating expenses.

Read the full Stores article.

Learn more about RFID capabilities here, where you can find resources like this asset tracking white paper and this brand-new RFID solutions brochure.

Store Re-Prices Products in Seconds with In-Aisle Mobile Printing

The Bargain! Shop, a major Canadian-owned retail chain with over 250 stores, consistently meets its customer demands by offering brand-name products at the guaranteed lowest prices. That means it must constantly evaluate and change pricing in order to remain competitive.

With inventory changing weekly, The Bargain! Shop needed a flexible pricing strategy. Previously, store clerks consulted the service desk for prices, and then selected from pre-printed shelf labels. Those labels only included a price without a product description, which often confused customers about which items corresponded with which shelf prices.

Plus, the approach was inefficient for clerks, who had to spend time verifying pricing and checking inventory.

The retailer sought a better way to manage pricing and stock visibility by integrating management software with mobile computing and printing operations like Zebra mobile printers.

In-aisle printing with mobile technology enhanced pricing accuracy, ensuring customers would see and pay the correct prices. It also made re-pricing much faster than before—typically in just a few seconds per product—so marking down products for major sales decreased from four hours to two hours.

Click here to learn how the retailer:

• Reduced price marking costs by 25 to 40 percent.
• Freed clerks’ time to focus on store appearance and customer service.

For more information on in-aisle mark downs, go here.

Workforce Management and Employee Kiosks: Perfect Partners

Aberdeen Group has released a Research Brief that further explores its December 2009 findings that 56 percent of Best-in-Class retailers are integrating their store-level workforce management processes.

The Research Brief shows that retailers using an integrated store-level workforce strategy that includes scheduling, time and attendance, and other human resource management technologies are much better able to respond to pressure to control labor costs, improve workforce productivity, and provide the customer with a seamless in-store shopping experience. Eighty percent of the above 56 percent, for instance, have increased same-store sales and 46 percent have raised customer retention rates.

Self-service kiosks can help streamline such integration by offering a convenient and effective interface between employees, an automated workforce management system and managers. For example, we wrote about one retail chain that found that after rolling out employee-facing kiosks as part of its labor management update, store managers spend 75 percent less time scheduling employees, and they can ensure the optimum number of customer-facing associates are on the floor.

Read more about how the chain benefited by employing self-service for employees. See white papers and other resources about kiosks and kiosk printing here.

As you face changing consumer demands and the pressure to deliver customer-centric service, is your store moving towards integrated workforce management? Do you see a place for kiosks in your workforce management processes?

RFID Growing Too Big for Its Britches?

RFID Growth Spurt Leads to Tech Shortages.

We’ve been talking about the growth and ROI benefits of item-level RFID, particularly in retail.

Supply Chain Digest reports that WalMart’s new apparel tagging program has helped lead to a supply drop in RFID EPC Gen 2 inlays, and that mobile RFID readers are now also in short supply. Why so? Lots of investment in RFID initiatives, including WalMart’s recent order for 20,000 Motorola mobile RFID readers, combined with “supply constraints that have lasted for months in basic electrical components that have cause delivery problems in a wide number of high tech gear, including mobile devices.”

In fact, Supply Chain Digest says that analysts at a major financial investment firm are predicting 300 percent market growth in RFID asset management for 2011.

Do you expect to join that growth, and invest in RFID for asset management and inventory visibility in the next year?

Read the Supply Chain Digest article.

See more about RFID printing/encoding here, where you can find resources such as our white paper “Traceability in Retail—Reducing RFID Media Costs for Best Value.”

Bar Codes to Cater to the Fashion Elite

Next month’s Fashion Week in New York will have a cute new accessory to dazzle the fashionistas. The event will be utilizing technology that the trade show industry as employed for several years now: barcodes.

We barcodnistas are pretty used to it by now. You register for NRF or RetailNow or any other trade event and you get a confirmation email with a barcode that you use to fly through the registration lines, laughing at long lines behind you.

Signature9 reported that Getting into FashionWeek shows have had epic long lines and only the fashion elites got fast tracked to their seats. Now attendees donning their barcoded RSVPs like next year’s hip clutch purses will fly over to check-in kiosks, scan their barcodes and get their seat assignments. The new system will give the event planners better gate-crash management as well as a faster seat switching capability.

The combination of technologies is really the interesting thing about this news. Not only will the implementation of barcodes provide better insight and management of attendees, the deployment of kiosks will deliver reduced wait times, fewer errors and greater attendee satisfaction. You can check out our retail solutions here.

How could you combine tracking technologies in a new way?

Hardware Considerations for Kiosk Design and Implementation

Previously, we’ve written about fundamental best practices that apply to designing and deploying any kiosk program, as well as tips that apply to specific retail kiosk applications. Following are things to consider when choosing hardware components for custom kiosks.

Zebra Kiosk Print Station

Housings

• Size: The kiosk should fit easily in the available space without blocking aisles or interfering with displays; compact interior components can help minimize housing size.
• Usage and environmental factors: Exposure to dust, moisture, and changes in light or temperature require suitable peripherals; for example, in dirty or high-usage environments, touchscreen input is preferable to a keyboard.
• Physical security: Locking cabinets and rugged construction can help secure the kiosk and its components.

Displays

Match the environment and application. For example:

• For outdoor kiosks, choose a display that can self-adjust to lighting conditions and remain readable in bright sunlight.
• For promotional applications, you may want high-end audio and video capabilities, while these would be overkill in a deli-ordering application.
• Ensure touchscreens are durable enough to withstand operation by untrained customers using keys or other surface-scratching objects to press the screen.

KR403 kiosk printer

Printers

In addition to ensuring printers can physically fit into the kiosk design, it’s important to ensure printers are reliable as they are a major variable in overall kiosk reliability.

• Print method: Thermal printers have few moving parts, and unlike laser and other printer types, direct thermal printers don’t require downtime to restock toner or ink.
• Jam-prevention features: Some printers will cut the printout so users won’t tear or pull on it as it’s printing.
• Remote management capabilities: To minimize downtime, choose printers that automatically send low-paper or paper-jam alerts and that allow support staff to remotely troubleshoot printers, change settings, or install software.

For more guidance in kiosk implementation, check out these white papers: Understanding Kiosk Requirements: Optimizing Design, Placement and Component Selection and Kiosks are Here—Are You Ready? What You Need to Get Started with Kiosks.

For more about kiosk printing, click here.

Long Checkout Lines? Mobile POS Could Be Your Answer.

BBC News reports that a Barclays Bank survey of 2,000 people showed that “More than two thirds of people have abandoned shopping because it was taking too long to be served.” The survey found that 68% “had abandoned a queue at one time or another.”

If the retailers where those people shop had used mobile point-of-sale queue-busting solutions, they would have seen more satisfied customers. Mobile printers can capture card information, communicate it for authorization, and create sales receipts. Stores can combine these capabilities with mobile computing systems to service customers throughout their facility, prevent long checkout lines or queues from forming, and create other services that improve customer convenience and satisfaction.

Learn more about mobile point of sale here, where you can also see the white paper “Service on the Spot: Mobile Queue Busting Systems for Improved Customer Loyalty and Sales.”

Read the BBC article.

If a Four-Store Retailer Can Profit from Item-Level RFID, Couldn’t You?

Item-Level RFID ROI a Shoe-in for Florida Retailer

Giants like Wal-Mart aren’t the only retailers using item-level RFID to improve inventory accuracy and reduce inventory-related labor costs. An article in RFIDJournal.com explains how “Florida shoe retailer Peltz Shoes has saved approximately 1,500 man-hours in the past year by applying a passive RFID tag to every box containing a pair of shoes at each of its four stores.”

Just so happens the store is using RFID printers from Zebra Technologies to encode the RFID labels and print each with a price, description and bar code. 

Check out the article.

What do you think—do you foresee your own stores implementing item-level RFID anytime soon? Do you think you could achieve the level of return on investment Peltz Shoes has?

For more about item-level tagging benefits, read this white paper. The paper also explores how “on-pitch” RFID printing and encoding technology can ensure data encoding accuracy while helping to improve ROI by reducing the cost of RFID label media by as much as 10 percent.

Discover more about RFID printing/encoding and Zebra RFID printer/encoders.

Application-Specific Tips for Kiosk Design and Implementation

Previously, we explored fundamental best practices that apply to designing and deploying any kiosk program. Now, let’s look at considerations specific to the following common kiosk applications.

Self-Checkout

• Ease of integration is key for self-checkout kiosks, which must interface with POS systems and peripheral devices such as bar code scanners and scales.
• Application designs and peripherals should support fast transaction processing.
• Minimal downtime is also a key consideration. The receipt printer, as a key component, should have a large paper capacity so it require less-frequent reloading, and should safeguard against jamming when customers pull on the receipt before printing is completed.

Coupons, Promotions and Loyalty

• Positioning is key. Place coupon/promotion kiosks near the front of the store or the promoted department to maximize use. Deploy kiosks supporting loyalty programs in convenient locations to encourage use on every visit—or, install them in low-traffic areas to draw more customers there.
• Include a loyalty card reader to capture kisk user information, which can be used to tailor promotions to customer preferences.
• Ensure coupons/certificates reflect your store’s image: Integrate a printer that supports quality materials and sharp graphics.

Product Information

• Place kiosks near products, so customers can readily get the product after learning about it.
• Use video or other multimedia to describe products when the product line is complex or confusing.
• If content (how-to tips, project materials checklists, product descriptions) is fairly static, the kiosk can hold it in memory and may not need to be networked.

Ordering

• Choose a high-quality screen and printer that produce sharp images and order tickets or receipts, and that support high levels of throughput.
• Consider security if the kiosk will also accept payment, particularly if wirelessly networked.

Gift Card

• System security and reliable receipt printing are essential, since self-service gift card kiosks almost always accept payment.
• Improve customer satisfaction by install kiosks near customer service counters, to divert customers who might otherwise stand in line to engage a store associate.

Registry

• Include registry kiosks on the network to ensure the registry is updated when items are selected or ordered.
• If you like, set the application to print a ticket directing users to the item’s exact location, or to alert an associate to go to the kiosk to interact with the registry shopper.

For more guidance in kiosk implementation, check out these white papers: Understanding Kiosk Requirements: Optimizing Design, Placement and Component Selection and Kiosks are Here—Are You Ready? What You Need to Get Started with Kiosks.

Read more about printing from kiosks.

Walmart Announces Item-Level RFID. Will You Be Next?

Walmart has officially launched an item-level RFID initiative requiring some suppliers to tag such apparel items as jeans and socks. You may have seen the report in the July 23 Wall Street Journal.

In RFID Journal’s report the same day, Myron Burke, Walmart’s director of store innovation, explained, “We are focused on items that require a more complex purchasing decision by the customer. With denim, the customer has to make a decision based on brand, style, size and cut, in addition to price, of course. There are other areas of the store where we sell items with similar attributes. Tires are one. Some electronics items, such as TVs, are another.”

RFID Journal also points to an Aberdeen Group survey that shows 57 percent of retailers use or plan to use RFID item-level tagging.

How about you? Do you see enough ROI from item-level tagging that you expect your stores to implement it anytime soon? If so, what sorts of items would you tag?

Read more about the ROI benefits of retail item-level tagging in our earlier blog article, and in the white paper “Traceability in Retail—Reducing RFID Media Costs for Best Value.”