Tony D'Onofrio
Retail
Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) Impact 2019 conference. Over 430 people made their way to the University of Florida’s Gainesville campus for the three-day event. The symposium "focused heavily on learning and collaboration, as well as an overview of the LPRC’s research on evidence-based tactics and strategies to reduce crime and loss in the retail space".
As part of a senior retail executive session, I contributed this excerpt of my continuously updated "Disruptive Future of Retail" presentation. What is the state of the global retail industry? Is USA retail a dying industry? What's in the mind of the new omnichannel shopper and how is it changing? What's the impact on the loss prevention function? What's driving disruption? Why is LPRC positioned to lead at the speed of NEW retail?
The Groovy Retail Industry
- Details
In today's increasingly complex world, branding is critical to lasting success. Every year, I look forward to the latest BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands study. This article summarizes the nearly 200-page report with a focus on retail, apparel, and luxury.
"In a year marked by rising consumer expectations, the erosion of category boundaries, and geopolitical disruptions, the 2019 BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands increased 7% in value. This hard-won gain outperformed the global GDP growth rate and added $328 billion to the BrandZ™ Top 100, bringing its total value to $4.7 trillion."
"Consumers expected superior customer experience, including rapid delivery. More mindful about the health and wellness of themselves and the planet, they also demanded a high level of responsibility and ethical behavior from brands. To meet consumer expectations, brands become more sophisticated about gathering and analyzing data, increasingly applying the insights across multiple businesses and ignoring category borders to create integrated brand ecosystems."
"Data-driven improvements in customer experience and personalization helped drive the value growth of the three fastest rising categories: luxury, up 29%; retail, up 25%, and insurance, up 15%."
The Top 10 Retail Brands - Digitization Transforms Shopping Experience
- Details
The Future of Retail Store Operations and Asset Protection
"Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor." - Sam Walton
Most impressive from a recent evening visit to the Walmart Museum in Arkansas were the company’s yearly chronological milestones throughout the exhibit areas. Being a technology geek, my focus quickly transitioned to understanding the historical innovation adoption cycle. Additionally, as a student of leadership, of interest was the culture messaging of founder Sam Walton in growing the company.
The following day, I had the pleasure of spending quality time with the Walmart Asset Protection (AP) team. Part of the trip included touring new technologies deployed at a store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Walmart Museum, the AP conversations, and the store walk were a great reminder of several key success formula ingredients in crafting the world’s largest retailer.
The Three Megatrends Driving the Future of Retail
- Details
Almost exactly a year ago, in my last RFID article titled "Keeping Physical Retail In-Stock", I concluded that the two most relevant components of positive customer experiences in physical stores are fast checkouts and products being in-stock. Multiple recent retailer quarterly earnings calls, several articles, and two requests from China on direct consulting with potential investors in RFID inspired this updated technology review.
In the latest Nike earnings call, CEO Mike Parker directly stated that RFID "is improving product visibility and is an important step toward integrating our diverse ecosystem of physical and digital experiences, distribution centers and contract factories." Calvin McDonald, CEO of Lululemon in his earnings call cited the company's strength and unique position in being able "to activate great product across our omni-guest experiences, leveraging our stores, community and events." Both Nike and Lululemon reported strong financial results for their respective quarters.
From what I have personally seen in working with major global retailers deploying RFID, this Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology continues to have digital transformation possibilities.
It's 2019, Are We There Yet RFID?
- Details
How do we Scientifically Change it?
The Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) is made up of over 70 retailers (approx. 200,000 stores / $2 Trillion in sales) and 75 solutions partners collaborating to develop effective loss and crime control solutions through science backed extensive research. To date the group has conducted over 300 real world loss prevention research projects for retailers and partners.
Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of "LPRC Innovate" program at the University of Florida. This new working group was stood up to provide cutting edge people, places, processes to support major retailers and solutions partners as they ideate, simulate, and test new digital, people, and design options.
As an industry influencer, it is my pleasure to be joining "LPRC Innovate" as we continue to scientifically re-define and digitally transform the future of retail. To highlight the great LPRC work to date, this article presents a couple never before published examples of what's in the mind of a shoplifter.
Self-Checkout Theft Offender Interview Study
- Details
“Norman (Mayne, CEO of Dorothy Lane Market) is a truly unique merchant. He has a special ability to identify concepts and products that will enthrall customers. Furthermore, he has allowed his people to pursue these same ideals. The result: his stores are masterpieces!” - Danny Wegman, Chairman of Wegmans
In multiple of my articles, I have been consistent that consumers and store associates as brand ambassadors plus immersive customer experiences are the future of retail. Growing up in this industry, it is always exhilarating observing these success elements in a live environment.
Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of re-visiting one of my favorite stores in the world, Dorothy Lane Market (DLM) in the USA state of Ohio. This retail masterpiece celebrated 70 years of being in business in 2018.
Our quick lunch possibilities visit into one of their locations evolved into an immersive 2+ hour visualization journey of the future supermarket. This post summarizes a few of the captured images and the memories they brought back from previously living in this part of the world.
- Details
In the past twelve months, I have spent substantial quality time with global retailers, expanded my social media reach, engaged a substantial number of technology companies including more Silicon Valley startups; all focused on being a driver of disruptive retail change. Reflecting on what I saw and heard in my just completed European tour this week, I can confirm that retail issues and solutions continue to have global tendencies.
This post will introduce you to what I believe are the top 3 next wave retail growth technologies. These solutions have both security and operational applications, but because I am attending the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) Asset Protection conference starting this weekend, some security aspects will be emphasized.
You Can Run, but You Cannot Hide
- Details
Several data points in recent weeks led to this update on the state of retail self-checkout (SCO) deployments. Among these are the increased self-service stores openings with Asia / North America taking the lead, the evolution from stationary SCOs to multiple variations of Scan & Go applications, and new research, some of which you will only see in this article, on the theft challenges with these new autonomous solutions.
My favorite story was a February 2019 article indicating that Walmart was transitioning from a consumer to a store associate "Check Out With Me" Scan & Go model with shopper theft cited as one of the major reasons. "In one case during the (consumer) Scan & Go rollout, a customer tried to leave a Walmart store with a cart of about 100 items, only 40 of which he had scanned."
Self-Checkout is a Growth Retail Application
According to Greg Buzek at the IHL Group, retailers that have traditional SCO see about 40% of their transactions and 20% of their sales volume now taking place at self-checkout stations. About 20% of large retailers / restaurants are rolling out Scan & Go consumer options in the next 12 months and 44% will have that option through their apps by 2020.
- Details
Annually I look forward to the Deloitte Global Powers of Retailing industry research which provides a detailed growth trajectory review of the global top 250 retailers. This year, in addition to summarizing my favorite insights from the 2019 edition, we will look back to the 2014 report to compare and contrast the changes in the retail industry over the last five years.
All the metrics presented in this article are from these two Deloitte industry leading reports. A thought-provoking technology disruption chart from the 2014 report is also included in this post for all of us to assess the retail industry's innovation progress.
The Global Powers of Retailing
The data in the latest report indicates that the global top 250 retailers grew roughly six percent and represented $4.53 trillion in retail revenue.
Note the slight decline in minimal revenue to be included as a top 250 retailer. The industry overall had stronger revenue growth in 2019 versus 2014, but sacrificed margin in the process. Contrary to recent popular presumptions, the percentage of retailers with global operations increased in the latest report.
The Rise of Amazon in the Global Top 10
- Details
Over the last several months I have had the pleasure of spending time with Asset Protection (AP) leaders at Macy's in New York. The visits were sparked by news articles and industry discussions on their advanced deployments of RFID and the smart integration of this Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology into the loss prevention function.
The Retail Benefits of RFID
The primary driver for the deployment of RFID is to improve inventory accuracy. Generically, across the retail industry, "RFID enables cycle counts to be completed about 25 times faster than traditional manual bar code scanning. Frequent, accurate cycle counts improve inventory accuracy, typically by 20 to 30 percent, allowing a number of retailers to achieve 99 percent inventory accuracy. This enables replenishment alerts to be reliably generated, increasing on-floor availability, and decreasing out-of-stocks (OOS), typically by 15 to 30 percent. This in turn results in sales uplift in the range of 1 to 10 percent or more for those categories."
While inventory visibility is the number one benefit of RFID, in multiple industry studies, loss prevention is always near the top as a primary application. Here is an example from the 2018 Technology Outlook in the Apparel Market research.
- Details
Sponsored Content
Top 3 Weekly Essentials
Chain Store Age
Harvard Business Review
It is a Small World
To begin the year with something fun, we travel to London UK to learn something new about Harry Potter. J. K. Rowling, the author, and Harry Potter share birth dates on July 31.
The houses of Harry Potter’s school, Hogwarts, were invented on an airplane sick bag while the author was traveling. Stephen Spielberg almost directed the first Harry Potter film.
The Harry Potter spells are in Latin. J. K. Rowling insisted that the actors in the Harry Potter movies be British and/or Irish.
More than 500 million copies of the Harry Potter books have sold worldwide; more than 180 million copies have sold in the U.S. alone. If all the Harry Potter books ever sold were placed end to end, they would go around the equator over 16 times. The books have been translated in 80 languages.
Harry Potter’s name is typed out 18,956 times throughout J.K. Rowling’s books. To watch all the Harry Potter movies, you need 1169 minutes.
This picture is taken at King’s Cross station where in the series Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry students catch the Hogwarts Express.
In the wizarding world, Harry and his friends get to the platform by dashing through a brick wall between platforms 9 and 10. Meanwhile, in the real King’s Cross, platforms 9 and 10 are separated by tracks, but you can find platform 9¾ on the wall in the station concourse.
It’s a new year. Dream big. Work hard. But most importantly remember that life is a journey not a destination. Turn on the light and have some fun.
Categories
Brilliant Research
What matters to today’s consumer 2025
One significant finding is that generative AI (Gen AI) is increasingly influencing consumer behavior and transforming shopping experiences. A notable 68% of consumers are prepared to act on its recommendations, and over half (58%) prefer product recommendations from Gen AI tools over traditional search engines. - From Capgemini Read more
Smart Infographic
What matters to today’s consumer 2025
The demand for 2-hour delivery has increased from 34% to 65% over the past two years. Quick commerce, supported by advanced logistics and AI, is set to dominate, with consumers willing to pay for speed. - From Capgemini
Insightful Videos
Why Food Prices Are Still So High In The U.S. -CNBC
As inflation cools considerably, prices for items like gasoline, used cars and energy have all declined accordingly. But food prices continue to outpace inflation, increasing by 28% since 2019. Read more
