The future of retail: (#retail3.0) Fase 1: the I-revolution: Intelligent Shop Furniture, Intelligent Logistics Units and the Unique Item Code

The future of retail:

(#retail3.0) Fase 1: the I-revolution: Intelligent Shop Furniture, Intelligent Logistics Units and the Unique Item Code

The installation of intelligent shop furniture with built-in scan functionality and touchscreen displays will lead to a paperless and printerless shop, a decrease in staff , a complete realtime inventory system and an effective crime prevention system. And furthermore retailers will not need to invest in expensive hand-held scanners anymore.

intelligent shop furniture:

This idea of intelligent shop furniture came to me when I was in the local public library. There they have installed a very clever inventory system, with an intelligent scanning bookcase for returning materials and scanplates for lending materials. When you bring back your books, comic books etc you just have to place it in a this intelligent bookcase which invisibly scans your returned articles. From the outside it looks like an ordinary bookcase and the scanning is 'invisible' (no red laser) and doesn't require direct contact , only proximity with the article that has to be scanned. On the screen you can see the scan results.

This is a similar technology as the scanplates used in cash registers, Only here they seemed to have improved on scanning strength, scanning angle and cloaking.

So you have furniture which scans articles and a display which gives you the details of the scanned articles.

With an upgrade in functionality, this existing technology can easily be transferred to a physical shopping location.

Shop racks are also but furniture with displays (the paper shelf price-labels being the displays).

Do you have any idea how much paper, printerink (which cost more than gold) and how many hours are spend on putting price-labels in the shelf-strips alone?

And do you have any idea how many mistakes are made during this process?

And how many labels you have to reprint in another format than the suggested batch format?

Where I used to work we had 6 types of price-label format, I spent alot time filtring out articles from a large data batch to reprint in another label format. I also often used to threw away half of the labels because they were printed in the wrong label-format.

Keep also in mind that in many stores this is daily routine.

And also that the printing mostly isn't done on professional printing presses but on office printers which regularly malfunction because an adhesive price-label gets stuck on the toner.

In short, the current system of price display is labour intensive, costly on paper and ink, and frustrating for staff. Furthermore the system doesn't give realtime pricing information and leaves room for human error (wrong price, old price).

Imagine what a intelligent store furniture could do for your shop? The #I-rack, The #I-shelf, The #I-display cabinet.

Just picture this: store shelves with small smartphone screens instead of those old-fashioned paper price-labels, And with the ability to scan every article on the shelf and synched with the inventory system (for instance Navision), cash registry system and the company's website.

Intelligent logistics units

The system would be able to keep a real time inventory. The system kows when an article is taken on or off a shelf and which and how mant articles are on a specific location at a specific time.

The displays would have the same touch and slide functionality as a smartphone or tablet. You would not only be able to see the price. But you would also be able to look up more information about the product, product reviews, tutorials, price comparison,....

But why stop at the shop furniture. The inventory will not be complete if you don't include the stockroom, logistics and warehouse.

Warehouse racks will be equiped with #I-plates which scan and display just like the intelligent furniture inside the store.

Logistics will be equiped with pallet-sized #I-plates to lay on the existing wooden pallets, and #I-boxes.

Those intelligent devices will scan accurately what is on or in it and display the information in the integrated or fixed-on screen.

There will be a revolution in logistics and transports with the invention of the box-shaped #I-pallet, which will replace the wooden pallets as a standard for transportaton. The box-shape will make this pallet easily stackable, Just like plastic beer crates. In a container you can stack 2 I-pallets on top of eachother, but ofcourse one can stack them much higher than that. Stacks of 6 I-pallets will become a common sight. Since, the pallet accurately displays the content, the sender and the destination there will be no need for freight manifests or other content-related papers,

Manufacturers will come up with 'applications' for the I-pallet, Like different kinds of slide-in I-pallet compartmenting systems, weight scales, temperature control, hermetic sealing, I-padding liners... So the #I-pallet can be used for transporting any kind of material: bulk, liquids, fragile material.

There will be no need of an entire controlling department. All you need is one person to manage and supervise the logistics movements.

There will be no need for papers, printers or that costly anual inventory control that drives everybody nuts.

No need for shop-assistants running about with stock outprints which they manually have to recount.

No need for those expensive unreliabe hand-held scanners, that you have to replace with a newer model every 5 years.

Unique Item Code

To make the whole system more comprehensive and to insure maximum tracability and minimum risk of theft ingeneers will come up with a Unique Item Code that will replace or complete the existing bar- and qr-codes.

Every item will have its unique code and can be traced back from the buyer to the shop to the wholesaler all the way back to the factory, With 'hot' items, not only the package but also the item itself will carry this Unique Item Code.

Advocates of the paperless society urge ingeneers also to develop a data imprintable/data eraseable transport patch for courriers. So there we be no need anymore for paper stickers on cardboard boxes. I, however this a piece of technology that will take a few more years to develop.