Thoughts from NRF, Part 3: Major Themes and Eye Catching Products

In parts 1 and 2 of my NRF 2019 recap I talked about the proliferation of retail technology and what retailers should do. In part 3 I cover the major trends I saw and some companies/products that caught my eye.

Before NRF, I tweeted my guess at what the three big things would be 1: IoT, 2: Data & 3: Localization.

I got 1 out of 3 right. Good for a baseball player but not for a quarterback.

DATA, DATA, DATA

Data was probably the number 1 thing at NRF. Big Data, Analytics, AI, etc. Every new thing and every booth had solutions driven by data, analyzed by AI or BI or plain old analytics. Not counting traditional systems like POS and Ecommerce solutions, the top 5 vendor category listings at NRF were all Data related:

• 135 In-store Analytics
• 132 Artificial Intelligence vendors
• 70 Business Intelligence
• 68 Customer Behavior Analysis
• 64 Big Data

These solutions were being used to drive increased and more effective personalization, optimized merchandise planning, supply chain and replenishment. As retail becomes more digital, the use of data as a competitive tool becomes more important. Someone told me that if you don’t have a data strategy you do not have a successful retail strategy. Without a proper data strategy, you can’t understand what your shoppers want, you can’t have the right products available and you can't manage your business successfully.

That all makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is most the vendors I spoke to in this category are selling a technology, not a solution to business problems. I hope retailers are not investing in just a technology without a vision of what they want to achieve.

IoT was not as big as I expected. The Expo Guide did not even include it as a category. You could find it but had to look a little closer and ask vendors if they had a solution. However, most of the big tech vendors had IoT solutions or demos. Interestingly, RFID tagging solutions for inventory control and shop and go solutions were featured by several companies. While not as sexy as some initiatives, I think all retailers have made improving inventory accuracy a key initiative so they can better support their omni-channel initiatives.  Impinj demoed their RFID solutions for tracking inventory, grab and go check-out and enhanced retail experiences by knowing what products consumers had removed from the shelf. As it has for several year, IoT was a big highlight in the Intel booth. RF Keeper, an Israeli based company I have been following for several years, also seems to have a good solution.

And I whiffed entirely on localization. Except for Radius 8 that I'll talk about in a later post, there were no vendors providing localization services that caught my eye.

What Caught My Eye?

What did catch my eye? Virtual Reality, Electronic Shelf Labels, Robots, Shopper Tracking, Facial Recognition and Shop and Go solutions.

Virtual reality was something I didn’t really expect to be as big. It was in at least 39 booths. Most of the big tech vendors had a VR solution. Shelf allocation and planograms was one big use as was home design & furniture preview applications.

A technology that that has been around for 20 years and never taken off that I saw in a few booths was Electronic Shelf Labels/Displays. I saw some impressive ways to use them with larger graphics and reacting and displaying different content as shoppers walked down aisles or stopped to look at something. The AWM Smart Shelf really stood out. While can display the traditional UPC, price and unit price information, the use of each of the shelf edge displays in delivering a message was innovative and impressive. In one example, they were advertising Pepsi products with logos moving across the entire shelf. Very eye catching.

Robots were everywhere. Well maybe not everywhere, but I think two dozen were at the show. I think robots will take off in retail to handle mundane and repetitive tasks like taking inventory, identifying stock-outs or misplaced products, etc. If employees can be freed from these tasks, they should be able to provide better service to shoppers. Now, when will they add speech to the robots so I can ask them the difference between two televisions or hold two pipe fittings in front of a camera and ask what parts I need to join them. How about a scanner for price check? Once you have a scanner, add payment capability and now you have a mobile line buster. Jetson's here we come!

Simbe Robotics is testing their robot in Schuck's Markets to check inventory, spot stock outs and check pricing accuracy using built in scanners and sensors. It looks like a 4x4 on a Roomba. Bossa Nova Robotics is testing their robots in Walmart stores. Their robots use image recognition software to perform similar inventory tasks. A big part of their pitch was how well their robots do not bumping into people and their analysis of on-shelf inventory data. They say their goal isn't to replace ERP systems, but it sounds like their solution will result in a second database of store inventory and separate analytics. 

Pensa had a different take on robots, using flying drones to swoosh through the isles as its cameras and vision recognition software identifies out of stocks and completes other inventory tasks.

There were several companies demoing shopper tracking systems. Some were being used for Amazon Go-like shopping. Watching the systems track the crowds of NRF shoppers in a vendor’s booth or in the aisle was impressive.

Coursa Retail tracks you, or rather the location of your phone that has a Coursa enabled merchant app on it. Adobe Labs was a surprise for me in this space. They track foot traffic in the store using the Adobe Cloud Platform along with IoT sensors, POS data and then send offers to shoppers based on Adobe Analytics, to for example, minimize the shrink due to perishable items. 

There were a couple of vendors selling Facial Recognition systems. C2RO was one that caught my eye. One benefit they talk about is tracking all customer activity and shopping paths, including where they stopped and spent time looking at product, from the second the customer walks through the door. Other use cases include identifying people for appointments and even creating a facial database of known shoplifters to alert management when they come into the store.

There were a few vendors trying to develop shop and go solutions similar to what Amazon has implemented at their Amazon Go stores. Zippin demonstrated their system which seems to work the same as Amazon's including cameras and image recognition, AI and QR code generated from an app. Scandit focused on using the consumers' phone to "scan" items as they put them in the cart. AWM Smart Shelf also demonstrated an Amazon Go like solution using image sensors on their smart shelfs.

Other Vendors of Note

One hardware vendor that stood out to me was Pax. Their new line of multi-lane terminals looks very sharp and functional, with optional pistol style grips for making it modular, kiosks mounts and printers. Nicely done design. (Pic by J. Wakefield not so nicely done.)

As a recent VP of Sales Enablement, I found Axonify interesting in that they are bringing traditional B2B Sales Enablement concepts to retail with their micro-learning platform. By reducing the time to onboard new associates, provide timely training for new product launches and promotions, and speed delivery of information to store associates they claim to be able to improve the retail experience. I wish I thought of this first.

Finally, Bryan Things, a French Company, was one of the most innovative vendors at NRF. I can't really describe what they do. Maybe digital merchandising? They call themselves a "Parisian start-up, designing retail digital furniture and digital point of sale solutions for global and luxury brands. One product was the sensor bar which is a small add-on device that fits any shelf or table and can trigger product specific content and messaging to be delivered on monitor built into the product display.

What did you see interesting at NRF this year?