Emerging Application Areas for IoT in the Consumer Retail Industry

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EMERGING APPLICATION AREAS FOR IoT IN THE
CONSUMER RETAIL INDUSTRY
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INTERNET OF THINGS is the talk of the town over
in construction, manufacturing, healthcare,
transportation and home automation. But we are
yet to fully tap into the potential of IoT driven
solutions to trigger disruption in and deliver
value to the consumer retail industry. Enabling
smart attributes and inter-connectivity to store
assets can have a plethora of exciting
applications engaging customer experiences,
leaner and more efficient store operations,
products and services as well as opening up of
new streams for revenue generation. According to
Zebra Technologies, 7 out of 10 retail brands
will be investing in IoT technology by 2021 and a
few have already begun rolling out IoT powered
smart stores and services. With more and more
retailers looking to reimagine every aspect of
their supply chain with technology, let us look
at some future possibilities for IoT in the
retail industry
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CREATING EXPERIENCES WITH LIGHTING
Lighting devices are a ubiquitous presence inside
any retail store and connected smart lighting can
do more than save energy. Emerging technology is
exploring avenues to utilize connected and
automated smart lighting for retail displays to
create superior customer experiences and indoor
positioning, expanding the horizon for an
experiential store. Retail giant Carrefour
partnered with Philips to install LEDs in one of
their hypermarkets in Lille, France. Enabled with
Visible Light Communication (VLC) technology,
these LEDs emit a code which is readable by any
camera on a smartphone, connecting the smartphone
to a digital experience provided by the store.
Customers can then locate items on their shopping
list using the indoor positioning activated by
the LEDs, experiencing an in-store navigation
system.
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SMART PACKAGING AND DIGITAL LABELING
Under the constant pressures of demands for more
consumer transparency and capricious regulations,
brands and retailers are running out of space on
the physical packaging of products to put
relevant information. IoT will play a major role
in the future of the labeling packaging
industry as brands turn to technology to solve
challenges related to packaging. QLIKTAG
Software is providing solutions using their IoT
platform to enable all products to have a
globally unique identifier QLIKTAG and hence a
digital twin, allowing dumb products to have a
presence in and participate in the Internet
through smart devices. These digital tags,
consisting of barcodes, QR codes and Data matrix
codes, pave the way for a vast variety of digital
interactions like better stock and inventory
management throughout the supply chain, product
traceability all through its lifecycle, consumer
transparency in multiple languages, product
authentication, consumer feedback, insight and
analytics as well as better consumer engagement
experiences. Brands also save on costs incurred
in reprinting and repackaging as these digital
tags allow real-time edits and updates of label
content remotely. For more information
https//www.Qliktag.com
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SMARTER INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
The future of retail will see an increased
integration of technology into brick and mortar
stores and a more connected ecosystem giving rise
to sophisticated experiences for both customers
and retailers. IoT will enable the development
of smarter inventory management solutions that
will be capable of detecting and solving
out-of-stock situations on its own. WiseShelf is
converting shelves in retail stores into smart
shelves to address the issue of shelf
out-of-stock incidents. Equipped with light
sensors, the shelves can detect when an item is
removed from the shelf and send alerts to the
management application through WiFi when it
assesses low levels of stock. Apart from leading
to more efficient restocking operations and
inventory management, these smart shelves are
also freeing up employees to engage in more
customer interactions. They are also providing
key data and analytics on the popularity of
products, enabling better design of store layout
in accordance to foot traffic.
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FACILITATING OMNI-CHANNEL RETAILING
In order to consolidate online shopping practices
with in-store ones, retailers are looking to
ingrain technology into physical stores for a
seamless customer experience. Ralph Lauren
launched interactive fitting rooms in its
flagship store in Manhattan, furnished with RFID
tagged interactive mirrors. Powered by retail
technology platform Oak Labs, the mirrors
automatically detect and display the clothing
items brought into the room along with available
sizes, colors and recommendations for a complete
look. Enriching the entire digital experience,
customers also have the option to call an
associate on the floor to the fitting room, to
bring more items to try out for example.
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AUTOMATED EVENTS OF SUPPLY CHAIN
Plenty of countries are plagued by an ageing
population and rising labor costs and retailers,
as a result, are turning to digital solutions to
reinvent supply chains. Panasonic in partnership
with Trial Company Inc. conducted a demonstration
experiment for an automated self-checkout system
with RFID tagged shopping baskets and products.
The smart shopping baskets are capable of
calculating the total cost and the number of
items in the basket due to the RFID tags,
generating your bill when you place it on the
checkout counter. Not only does it allow
automated billing, but on being placed on the
self checkout counters, the bottom of the basket
can open up releasing all contents into a bag,
which the customer can collect and leave.
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REDUCING FOOD WASTAGE AND SPOILAGE
IoT could have vast implications in reducing
global food wastage and spoilage, especially at
the retail level. Wasteless, a startup from
Israel, has successfully implemented IoT enabled
digital pricing labels in an international
Spanish retail store in an effort to reduce food
waste. Using data regarding expiry dates encoded
into the barcodes or RFID tags on labels,
Wastelesss platform enables a dynamic pricing
system with the cost of the product dependent on
its freshness, becoming cheaper as it nears its
expiry date. The platform has led to reduction of
waste by 33, better inventory management and
monitoring of products in terms of their expiry
dates to reduce out-of-stock incidents as well as
improved sales by allowing customers a more
dynamic pricing range to shop from.
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FOOD TRACEABILITY AND QUALITY CONTROL
The entire food supply chain will see a
transformation as IoT enabled sensors and smart
devices will become more common to track and
optimize each supply chain event. With more
demands for fresher food products and sustainable
sourcing, these sensors will be able to collect
and transmit relevant information like location,
temperature etc to all supply chain stakeholders
in real time. Consumers buying at retail stores
can scan digital tags like QR codes, Data matrix
codes or RFID tags on packaging to get assurance
about the quality and provenance of the food
product. Zest Labs is working to improve
real-time visibility for farm to shelf at all
levels of the supply chain. Their unique ZIPR
code (Zest Intelligent Pallet Routing) enables
real-time tracking and monitoring of the actual
freshness of each pallet of food product, using a
combination of wireless IoT sensors and cloud
based predictive analytics and machine learning.
The result is in supply chain managers being able
to make better decisions about sending a
particular pallet across a certain distance based
on its freshness, thus preventing food spoilage
in-transit.
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THANK YOU!
For more details visit!
www.Qliktag.com