Retail Technology Show 2024 review: Panel debates innovation and trends including AI and RFID

Security was one of the key trends identified by a panel including Primark, River Island, Spar, and Croatian retailer Studenac, at Retail Technology Show (RTS) 2024 in London.

AI usage was inevitably identified as another key trend, alongside RFID, and the need to better integrate technology. 

“Security is crucial at the moment, especially in the self-checkout environment, and during a cost-of-living crisis when the need to protect colleagues and stock has never been higher,” said Martin Rushton, Head of Commercial Projects at AF Blakemore, the owner of the Spar chain of convenience stores. 

Speaking at RTS 2024 at London Olympia on 24th April, Rushton wondered, however, how far you could take preventive measures to stop theft, or shrinkage as it’s euphemistically known in retail?

“For example, would you really want to roll-out camera-linked customer face recognition AI in-store and only let customers in if you knew them?,” he said.

That is highly unlikely to ever happen in the West, but even the thought illustrates the scale of the present security and theft problem. Online fraud is also an issue.

AI

Other more positive applications of AI technology in the retail sector identified by Rushton, included demand planning, price optimisation and wastage control.

The ability of AI to crunch vast pools of data in order to find useful patterns and make recommendations in these areas could be very beneficial.

Such analytics end uses, and indeed in other fields, are proliferating in retail as the power of AI data interrogation becomes more and more evident. Inventory management and labelling are other prominent end uses.

“The shrinkage issue is problematic for us,” said Paul Sims, Chief Architect, Primark, and indeed for everyone, as he went on to point out that the Co-op chain of small grocery stores across the UK lost £70 million last year due to crime.

He was most interested in AI applications in:   

• Product lifecycle management: where AI machine learning could be useful in the design process and in forecasting demand, so that stock can be suitably inventoried.

• Better personalisation: should be possible thanks to more powerful analytical capabilities, the overcoming of silos and so on.

RFID

Simon Pakenham-Walsh, Chief Information Officer at River Island, which has 240 stores across the UK, is looking forward to refocusing on physical locations, after a period building out its digital platform and experience. Technology is still relevant in this arena too, of course.

“Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and readers can better integrate the in-store and digital experience for example, in the future,” he said.

“We have already deployed RFID very successfully on our stock,” added Pakenham-Walsh, pointing to significant successes at River Island, such as:

• Stock availability rising from 70% to 98% after the introduction of RFID.

• The size gap fell from 8% to 1% inaccuracy, due to better stock oversight.

• A 3% uplift in sales was also achieved because stock was always in.

Integrating technology

Whatever project the panellists, or indeed peers at RTS 2024, want to pursue will always require integration into the operations and processes of the host firm.

Aligning people, process and technology is what delivers transformational change – not just plugging in a new widget.

Better stock impacts sales, as does enhanced data led customer experiences, and so on and so on. “It’s all connected,” said Primark’s Sims. 

The why question was recommended by Nina Mimica, Chief Innovation Officer at Studenac Market, as a good starting point for any proposed technology project. Ask yourself before any installation: “Why do you want it, to what end?,” she asked.

Sage advice for the hundreds of attendees packing out the Headline Theatre at RTS 2024. Technology is not an end goal in itself. It’s a tool to get a desired outcome.

Keeping that outcome in view is always good practice if you want a successful project.