Award fires me up about Smarter Retail

I received an email from the editor of Value Reseller Magazine that I will receive an award for a solution that I created in my pre-Microsoft days. The solution was an integrated suite of retail RFID applications built for art museums and galleries. The applications included C# Windows Forms server, mobile and desktop applications utilizing ADO.NET and SQL server Compact and Enterprise editions. I also employed web services and SQL replication to wire it all together.

The functional focus of the solutions, which I marketed under my business, Sapago, was called Art-FID and included “personal shopping,” inventory and asset management and some basic security functions. The concept of personal shopping was inspired by the Microsoft Smarter Retailing Initiative concept of “Smarter Shopping.” The product allowed museum visitors and gallery shoppers, using mobile devices and RFID or bar-code readers, to access to multimedia information about artists and artwork and included ecommerce type functions like cross-sell, up-sell, personalization and user reviews.

I strongly believe that there are untapped opportunities to dramatically increase retail conversion rates, reduce “out of stock” losses, lower inventory levels, streamline purchasing and improve merchandise modeling. In addition, retailers are failing to realize the maximum return from in-store CRM and loyalty programs because the customer touch point occurs at the point of sale transaction and not while the customer is shopping.

In particular, the in-store shopping experience lags the technology. Over the last several years, retailers have faced ecommerce integration, industry consolidation, volatile retail sales conditions and a PoS refresh cycle. Retailers have focused resources on ecommerce fulfillment, supply chain RFID and integrating acquisitions, among other challenges. The result is that billions of dollars in profits continue to walk out the door of stores.

We are positioned for an exciting time. Mobile and in-store technologies hold the promise of better matching store visitors to individualized shopping experiences. Early adopters in this area could find differentiators that would reshape retail and lead to a huge phase of consolidation.

My application was selected “Best in Show” at the 2005 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference and then I received a call from a recruiter about positions with Microsoft’s Connected Systems division, which produces RFID and products such as Windows Workflow, BizTalk, Commerce Server and many others. It is great to be a part of the producing the technologies that could change the way we shop.