CSA Exclusive: Nikki Baird sheds light on retail technology trends

2/10/2022

Nikki Baird, VP of innovation, Aptos Retail

During 2022, retailers will focus on technology areas including omnichannel retailing, in-store payment, and RFID.

Chain Store Age recently spoke with leading industry expert Nikki Baird, VP of innovation, Aptos Retail, about how retailers will attempt to innovate with technology during 2022. Highlights from the conversation are below.

Omnichannel retail
“Omnichannel continues to be a high priority,” said Baird. “It expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2022 will see more investment from retailers. However, retailers will not be doing the same things did in the early days of the pandemic, which were baling wire and chewing gum. Now, omnichannel investments will be driven by specific use cases. A retailer might add in-store pickup if they stood up shipping from the store during COVID-19.”

According to Baird, the accelerated shift to omnichannel retailing which was prompted by COVID-19-related store shutdowns in the first few months of the pandemic is continuing, with a significant effect on how retailers design and operate their stores.

“There is a rejiggering of store formats,” Baird said. “The long-term impact is still in play. Retailers are revisiting inventory to make sure they have an accurate accounting of what’s in the store, so they can put the right inventory in the right place.”

Baird said the prevalence of open fulfillment, where store inventories are also made available to fulfill online orders, means that retailers don’t always know if local store assortments include the right products.

“There is no obvious answer,” said Baird. “Retailers need to get a better understanding of their store territory and the impact of where store inventory is ultimately going. Are products shipping to the region around the store? Look at the demographics of the surrounding area and see if the assortment matches those customers’ preferences.”

Brick-and-mortar payment
According to Baird, retailers are very interested in upgrading their in-store payment procedures to make them more convenient, as well as touchless, but are running into difficulties.

“Payment can be an ugly pain point,” said Baird. “On the back end, the supporting technology is often archaic. But the hardware needed to upgrade payment is hard to get and supply chain issues are impacting it. If it needs a computer chip, the supply chain is constrained.”

One way retailers are working around the hardware issue, at least on the front end, is by implementing “scan and go” and self-checkout payment systems that consumers run on apps on their own mobile devices. Baird said retailers are also providing in-store QR codes that consumers can scan with their smartphones to obtain access to product data that is stored online.

However, Baird said she is seeing less general industry interest in the truly frictionless, “Just Walk Out” payment model, as exemplified by Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh convenience and grocery store formats.

“A couple of other grocery retailers and some airport retailers are using Just Walk Out,” said Baird. “But for a vertical like fashion, it would be a struggle. Operationally, they’re more at risk. If a customer walks out without being charged for a $100 sweater, it’s much more of a loss than if they walk out with a $2 pack of gum.”

RFID
In response to ongoing labor shortages, Baird said retailers are taking a fresh look at RFID.

“Retailers are interested in having accurate cycle counts, but they don’t have the associates to perform them,” she said. “RFID tags let retailers automate the process, but not in the traditional sense of ‘automation’ with robots roving around. The business case for technologies like RFID and electronic shelf labels (ESLs) has languished, but is coming back. The price of the technology hasn’t come down, but the cost of labor has gone up.”

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