Commentary

Samsung, SapientRazorfish Show IoT Retail Approach At NRF

Samsung is taking the Internet of Things to retail.

At the National Retail Federation Big Show in New York today, Samsung and SapientRazorfish are introducing IoT tools intended to link online and in-store shopping activities.

Incorporating IoT, data analytics and mobile technologies, the companies are showcasing a customer journey inside an apparel store with synchronization to back office systems.

The customer journey technologies include all activities from a consumer entering a store to paying by mobile just before they leave.

Lots of Samsung technology is in the demonstration. For example, a shopper can order an item from home using the store’s app on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone and when the customer arrives, the store’s app triggers a beacon on a large digital sign, showing personalized content based on past purchases. It also suggests other items that can be browsed via touch screen. At the same time, a store associate is notified of the customer’s arrival via Gear S2 wearable and then approaches the customer.

If the shopper can’t find what they’re looking for in the store, they can get assistance through the store app by pressing a ‘help’ button in the app. This sends an alert to the nearest store associate, who uses Samsung triangulation to locate the customer in the store.

In the display, as the shopper moves through the store, they are shown a merchandising display that has proximity sensing light bulbs and a beacon, which detects the customer and lights up the shoe model of interest to them, based on the customer’s past shopping data from the store’s mobile app. The shoe has an RFID tag that allows the customer to take it to a nearby station, which detects the shoe and displays more information on the product.

At checkout, a store associate can scan the merchandise using a Samsung smartphone, completing the purchase without using a checkout terminal. The customer taps their phone and pays with Samsung Pay.

The ‘Razorshop’ display utilizes lots of Samsung technology, ranging from phones and tablets to wearables and large video screens.

Whether retailers will adopt the entire Samsung-SapientRazorfish end-to-end package remains to be seen.

It does, however, show how emerging IoT capabilities can be incorporated into retail, which is a far cry from what is happening in many stores today.

 

 

 

Next story loading loading..