The spatial footprint of companies touting computer vision and just-walk-out-the-door technology on the Expo floor at the NRF Big Show 2023 was large. AI is the talk of the show as retail’s latest technology trend. It dominates the conversation, even as it is not well understood, or worse, misunderstood. Just look at the obsession with ChatGPT and you get a taste of the industry’s love affair with the latest, buzzy fad.

RFID is a language that functions globally with no geographic borders and has continually evolved since its introduction two decades ago. It is based on a single standard that allows companies to manage inventory throughout the product lifecycle, driving a frictionless experience from the factory to the till.

Alternatives

But innovation is the mother of the future generations of retail. Uniqlo and the solutions company Avery Dennison have partnered in developing a novel and game-changing self-checkout system. They detailed their collaboration during a panel at the Big Show 2023 and later in an exclusive interview with The Robin Report. Uniqlo’s CIO Takahiro Tambara joined Avery Dennison’s Vice President of Global RFID Development Bill Toney as they discussed the retailer’s innovative approach to tackling supply chain and product lifecycle efficiencies from the factory to the shopping bag.

Intrigued, we went straight to Uniqlo to see how the self-checkout system works before attending the panel. The process involves walking to an available register, initiating payment on a screen, placing the items — whether two or twenty — on a flat surface, confirming your purchase, and walking out. While a checkout process is still required, it is practically instantaneous and painless. What a pleasant surprise. It bears little resemblance to the barcode-based, self-checkout processes that have often bedeviled customers. Think about it. Your purchases laid on a counter are instantly scanned and inventoried without you lifting a finger. This innovation works. We checked out in seconds. This is a great customer experience on steroids.

RFID-Fueled Globalization

In our post-panel interview with Tambara and Toney, we discussed this innovation, as well as other technology-fueled steps the company is taking. Uniqlo is expanding in an international business model it is calling “Global One.” As part of this cultural reorganization, Uniqlo has opened a second headquarters in New York City. And good news for next gens, they are looking for top talent to level up their engineering, strategy, and operations.

Voice of the Customer…Voice of the Store

Tambara steered the conversation beyond technology to the vision that motivated the self-checkout initiative. “We are a very customer-centric company, and we are always looking for ways to wow the customer. The self-checkout experience is one step, and we want to do more, to offer more services.”

To create the practically seamless checkout experience, Avery Dennison, the company’s innovation partner, turned to RFID, a reliable and rather utilitarian 25-year-old technology. Toney explained, “RFID is a language that functions globally,” explaining that RFID has no geographic borders and has continually evolved since its introduction two decades ago. “It is based on a single standard that allows companies to manage inventory throughout the product lifecycle, driving a frictionless experience from the factory to the till.” He continued, “RFID is more than a B-to-B inventory management tool, it unlocks an enormous amount of data that can be used to enhance the consumer experience.” Tambara elaborated, adding, “We call the data we collect the Voice of Customers, and that voice drives AI to inform our product development and demand forecasting, optimizing distribution and reducing waste throughout the supply chain.” He explained that they also examine customer “search not found” data, both online and in-store. The in-store data is called the “Voice of Store” and augments the online findings. The company combines RFID-informed data with store feedback for the product development team and informs the innovation that is guiding its global expansion.

Efficiency and Satisfaction

Tambara stressed that the company’s technology initiatives were not designed to eliminate staff. “The more digital things become, the more human touch is required. We are in the real-life business. Without customers, we don’t exist. We want to leverage digital technology to enhance the human touch. We use digital technology to enhance our online and offline businesses and we need experts in all of these areas.” Toney added that RFID technology allows for inventory visibility and availability. “Efficient omnichannel and buy-online, pick-up-in-store services help our internal and external stakeholders. They keep both employees and customers happy.” He continued,” RFID serialization helps reduce theft. If you know that the product is missing, you can now pinpoint how, when, and where it was stolen, and work to address those factors.” As a side note, fraud and theft prevention was a big thread throughout the NRF presentations.

Trusted Partners

The bulk of retail has moved to omnichannel as consumers expect a seamless experience wherever and whenever they choose to transact. Technology firms have responded, unleashing an explosion of tech-based solutions to the age-old retail objectives of right thing, right place, and right time. Any savvy retail operator examines the consumer pain points its company is trying to solve. Establishing trusted partners who already understand your business and culture is a smart business practice and a financial advantage . The collaboration with Avery Dennison and Uniqlo is a forward-thinking strategy to manage customer expectations with experienced experts who hold actionable solutions. The win for both partners is exploiting new tools and integrating them into existing systems. Amazon Go stores are perfect for convention centers, airports, sports arenas, and other grab-and-go situations. They may be a hot topic but as we learned from the Uniqlo story, an effective brand partner has to have adaptable solutions. And the surprise of this story is the revelation that a technology many may have taken for granted not only has new tricks, it is a remarkably modern and relevant solution for retailers of any size and scale.

Going green is a big selling point for consumers and businesses alike, with many moving away from companies that don’t share their sustainability values. As people demand demonstrable climate action, there’s an urgent need for brands to respond with more transparent and eco-friendly supply chains that effectively reduce waste. Avery Dennison conducted this research to better understand the global supply chain waste challenges that companies face and explore the innovative ways these issues are being tackled. Our goal is to improve transparency, trust and item-level visibility through data-led solutions; highlight the value of sustainable supply chains; and understand how consumer priorities have an impact on waste. Order your free copy of the report now!

The key learnings from SXSW 2018, which took place in Austin, Texas in mid-March, were both exciting and challenging. The interactive festival, which has become a thought leadership institution rivaling TED and Davos, is now in its 24th year. The festival is a mecca for the business and lifestyle intelligentsia hoping to stay ahead of, or at least aware of, the brewing societal shifts and technological innovations that will affect both business and culture. SXSW Interactive 2018 presented 11 tracks of intense programing; If you are looking for ideas, SXSW is your beacon.

The Thrill of It All

For festival-goers interested in Tech-Celebrities the thrill peaked with the last-minute addition of Elon Musk on center stage, Other keynotes counter-balanced the all-tech dialogue with presentations by renowned relationship therapist Esther Perel, discussing technology fostered loneliness; philanthropist Melinda Gates speaking of empowering the world’s women in the Me Too moment; and London Mayor Sadiq Kahn, sharing his experiences with online hate. These themes are important bellwethers in the cultural conversation and what’s trending among consumers. As exciting as SXSW is, the paradox of choice (think overstuffed stores) can work against success. Do you want to be distracted by demonstrations of Japanese Sushi Teleportation robots or a massive dancing Kuka robot on the convention center floor, or attend any of the approximately 100 sessions, plus brand activations, plus parties offered each day? Good news, I have curated the festival with a focus on sessions in the Style, and Future Intelligence tracks; both key to trends that will inform and frame retail.

AI Has Achieved Ubiquity, but How Will It Last?

The festival took place just days before the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and ironically a session titled: For CMOs Knowledge is Power, was held by Cambridge Analytica’s VP of Sales Tom Jackson. Until the news of the data share by Facebook broke, AI-based marketing built on customer data was considered less of a breakthrough, but more of a commodity. In the United States, it still remains to be seen where this scandal will net out. But in the E.U. the changes to privacy protocols are imminent as the GDPR regulations are scheduled to be enacted in May.

The GDPR regulations and other privacy matters were detailed in a standing-room-only lecture by Amy Webb, author, Strategic Insights Professor at The Stern School of Business at NYU and founder of the Future Today Institute. Webb repeated the often-heard phrase “data is the new oil” but warned that new privacy protocols and legislation could soon be afoot in the United States which may impede the flow of that “oil.” Webb noted that U.S. businesses have done little to no planning for this contingency. Her prediction was made before the Cambridge Analytica revelation. Her profession as a Futurist is apt.

Online privacy legislation is suddenly a hot discussion topic, yet physical privacy is another matter. Webb explained, “Everyone has different capillary patterns under our skin. Emerging Identification technology has been developed to positively confirm our identities through those patterns.” Fingerprints, passwords and iris scans may soon be a thing of the past. A capillary ID scan may be all that is necessary to make a purchase at our preferred retailer or to board a plane.

An Artificial Intelligence innovation that Webb discussed is AI enabled reinforcement learning. At SXSW, Sony gamified this innovation through their Aibo Robo Dog. At the Sony Wow Studio, the perfect Robo-Pup was on display. The dog is trained through reinforcement learning technology. The more love you give this pet, the more the dog amps up the praised behavior. Aibo Pup is equipped with multiple touch sensitive zones, and voice recognition technology to receive approval. While this technology may be coming soon to our retailers to predict and adapt future shopping patterns, your robo-pup can do the same, while also becoming your new robotic best friend.

Webb also discussed innovations in Augmented Reality, noting the number of new AR patents being filed since the release of Magic Leap’s headset in late 2017. She predicted that “by 2021 the revenue in the AR space will be $130 billion. This will happen when wearables and glasses come together.”

A taste of that future fusion was on display at SXSW. The Bose AR Hear What You See experience-activation demo-ed their new prototype AR glasses. The glasses have a built-in speaker that is audible only to the wearer but doesn’t block out the surrounding environment. After the demo, I joined a tour for a Bose Augmented Reality walk down Rainey Street in Austin wearing the glasses which offered an audio navigation of the local bars as we approached them. For any of you who have given up hope on the fulfillment of AR’s promise to be a pervasive device for both marketing and navigating our future lives, rethink your pessimism. As we saw in the original Bladerunner, 2021 is not very far away, and retail is going to have a huge share of the AR experience.

Style Threads

The Style track, brought fashion and retail into focus. Faith and Fashion began with a personal account by Haute Hijab CEO Melanie Elturk. Originally a lawyer, Elturk loved to express herself through her clothes, but as an observant Muslim woman, she could not easily find high-style hijabs in the U.S. and she tired of trying to wrap big neck scarves around her head. To solve the problem, she founded the e-commerce brand in 2010. Now they sell exclusive designs on their site to thousands of fashion oriented Muslim women globally, offering hijab styles with names like: Simply Meowvelous and Blue Suede Muse. This panel was lightly attended, reflecting our cultural moment. The success Haute Hijab has achieved should serve as a signal to retailers and brands about the markets they serve. It is predicted that by the year 2040, the Muslim population will be the dominant global group, and the blossoming rubric of New Majorities will continue to gain relevance as global populations increasingly change in both ethnicity and religion.

Another underserved coterie of fashion consumers addressed at SXSW Style were the disabled. The Hunger Games actress, and prosthetic limb advocate Angel Giuffira, walked the festival demonstrating the usefulness of her custom, prosthetic, robotic arm created by Advanced Arm Dynamics For the fashionable disabled cohort, Grace Jun of Open Style Lab started her organization as an experiment at the MIT Media Lab, and now works in collaboration with The Parsons School of Design. At Open Style Lab, the goal is to educate designers about the needs and demands of the disabled. Jun said, “This is a market worth $65 million, they can and want to spend, and we do not feel that fashion independence should be limited by dexterity.” The lab conducts 10-week sessions that bring together designers, engineers and occupational therapists, pairing them with disabled individuals. A number of designers including Tommy now offer adaptive fashion lines, and the goal is to raise an awareness of the needs of this untapped market, many of whom are big spenders.

SXSW Style also explored over-served customers. In the Faux Real session, Graham Wetzbarger, Chief Authenticator for The Real Real, and Julie Vargas, Director of Digital Solutions for Avery Dennison discussed the $1.7 trillion global counterfeit industry. Faux Real exposed the latest in nefarious counterfeit innovations such as “just in time” counterfeit manufacturing, where the goods are designed, assembled, and shipped to their destinations without any branding. The labels, hardware and tags are sent separately by air freight. Once the items clear customs, they are sent to smaller local factories where the fraudulent labels, tags and hardware are applied, and the items are sent directly to distributors.

To combat this ever-evolving innovation, Wetzbarger and Vargas examined the use of both blockchain verification and RFID tagging. Vargas said Avery Dennison is working with RFID tagging of components. “We are working to distribute the knowledge of every component that goes into the piece, including the identity of the craftsman.” Wetzbarger discussed using blockchain to identify not only the original, but also the owners in the secondary market, offering technological verification of ownership or a “chain of provenance similar to the art market.”

Not All Work and No Play

Bitcoin has had a bumpy ride as of late, but 31sessions included blockchain or Crypto in their descriptors. Other forward-thinking trends were quantum computing, technological ethics and voice activation. The shape of the future came together real-time with HBO’s Westworld Mariposa recreation and in the Google Assistant Fun House, complete with margaritas blended on demand. ”Google, make me a margarita” reminded us all that this festival is not only serious, but has a long tradition of some serious fun and identifying the emerging trends that are going to change our lives. If you want to know what ‘s happening…before what’s happening next, early bird tickets for SXSW 2019 go on sale in early August.