RFID & the Evolution of Shopping: The Future is Here

In the last 25 years, the shopping experience has changed significantly, Rather than hitting the mall to find what we want, we hit the keyboard on our computers or mobile devices instead.   Over the next decades, the event known as “shopping”—driven by technology— is certain to evolve even more. RFID will be one of the key technologies facilitating and speeding the next generations of change.

Futurists are envisioning that within the next 25 technology-enhanced years, we can expect a very personalized shopping experience with retail venues that know, or intuit, our preferences from the moment we enter the space, whether it be online or in a physical store.  A brief sampling of what’s ahead—or here already. (Hint: lots of customization and personalization across shopping/buying channels)

From greeting you by name to remembering your size and your style preferences, the store of tomorrow will interact with you through each step of the purchase journey. Your mobile device will act as a personal concierge.  RFID tagging will ensure what you want is never out of stock (or over promised), and super easy to locate.

Smart Fitting Rooms

We’ve talked about this one before, and momentum is growing.  Fixed RFID readers in the dressing room plus an interactive table computer enable customers to access more product information about items they are trying on, share info with their social networks, give feedback to the store employees, request a different size or color, watch products videos (in the dressing room) and so much more. 

The retailer captures valuable feedback, is able to track all merchandise as it moves in and out of the dressing room and is able to see the conversion ratio of try-ons to actual sales—and so much more.  This is totally win-win.

All of us at Truecount agree with Doug Stephens, founder of industry website Retail Profit and author of “The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism” when he predicts, “We will see more disruption in the next ten years of retail than we did in the previous one thousand.”

Today, German neurobiologists are mapping brain waves in response to product pricing and uncovering some highly counterintuitive insights into how the human brain perceives pricing and value giving retailers an unprecedented capacity to use technology and data to deliver intelligence about what consumers actually do.   Drones are making same day delivery possible

Beyond RFID technology,, IBM’s newly-developed Watson Group is taking digital commerce to the next levels with Fluid, a mobile application that will apply the cognitive power of artificial intelligence to e-commerce. Stay tuned.

Looking ahead, thanks to RFID and other enabling technologies,  bricks and mortar stores will have the same analytic intelligence as their online components (or competitors), with the ability to track and identify and track us within the store; following where we move within the space; and what products we interact with, and purchase.  It’s going to be an exciting (shopper) journey.