Podcasts

There are broadly two operating models for petrol / gas forecourts. Either the shopper fills up and then goes inside the store to pay for their fuel and then (hopefully) other purchases, or they are asked to pre-pay by either going into the store or paying at the pump before fuelling.

The benefit of the pre-payment model is the risk of loss, through drive offs, or the customers not having a means of payment, is near zero. However, this model adds friction to the shopper journey and does not optimise the up-selling opportunity inside the shop.

In this podcast, Professor Adrian Beck and Colin Peacock consider how some retailers are lowering the risk of drive offs through computer vision using ANPR / LPR technology, digital incident reporting. While also recognising the importance of collaboration, especially with law enforcement to further reduce and prevent the risk of drive offs.

Join Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck as they discuss how retailers are using facial recognition technology within the legal constraints to reduce theft, especially from persistent offenders.

The ECR working group has been tracking the use of facial recognition in retail for the last five years.

We have seen some strong results reported back to the group from retailers such as Rite Aid in USA, and then more recently updates from USA, UK and Australian retailers.

With the pressure on governments around the world to support requests from retailers for help with the growing levels of violence, abuse and theft from retail locations, there is some evidence that governments are listening more to requests from retailers to help progress facial recognition technology (click here).

Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck discuss some of the latest thinking from retailers who are seeing significant benefits from the data associated with RFID. With use cases that include interactive fitting rooms, the use of RFID to improve inventory accuracy from the DC to the store, through to the use of RFID for high theft item security, product returns and more.

At the peak of its inflated expectations, RFID was going to solve for all retailers ills while delighting the shopper.

However, as our ECR report highlighted (click here), the business case "sweet spot" for RFID turned out to be the counting of soft fashion lines more accurately at less cost.

This episode of the podcast focuses on how retailers are now looking to "sweat" their RFID investment harder.

On this episode, Colin Peacock is joined by Professor Adrian Beck to discuss where next for Scan and Go? How can retailers reduce errors, improve accuracy and ultimately reduce loss when shoppers use their own devices to scan and pay for their groceries.

Some shoppers love the ability to use their own device to scan and then pay for their groceries, as it can be a huge time saver. However, this customer friendly proposition can be hugely risky for retailers.

In fact, one retailer, Wegmans, withdrew the proposition much to the annoyance of their shoppers because of loss.

Other retailers have shared that when they audit the baskets of those using their own device, over 15% of those baskets contained an error. With the discrepancy representing a 6% loss.

For more information on ECR Retail Loss' work on Scan and Go, check out our 2018 report - Self Checkout in Retail: Measuring the Impact on Loss. Or read the summary of our previous Scan and Go meeting