Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

RFID is designed to make supply chains more efficient and sophisticated, but the torrent of new product data created by radio-frequency identification systems is overwhelming without the right business intelligence software to analyze it.

In the middle of Albuquerque, N.M., sits a 170,000-square-foot chunk of land that is slated to be the site for a new kind of retail store: one where customers can buy a week’s worth of groceries without ever having to set foot outside their car.

On paper—and, thus far, that’s the only place this grocery store exists—this proposal seems to have plenty to offer both retailers and customers.

Are “smart-carts” state-of-the-art and cutting edge for retail technology? It’s a matter of perspective. Compared with the best European and Asian retail chains, American retailers are electronic laggards, especially in the grocery segment.

Even compared with U.S. retail technology discussions, these carts are merely deploying and productizing capabilities that have been publicly discussed for more than a year. But compared with what is actually being used—and even offered—with today’s American grocery retailers, these Fujitsu carts are positively Jetsons.

Credit card companies, through consumer promotions and lower fees for retailers, have been whittling away at the last few cash-friendly refuges.

And as though George Washington needed even more disrespect to be heaped upon his picture on the one-dollar-bill, contactless payment systems are now helping to take the green out of greenbacks.

As retailers prepare to migrate from bar codes to RFID, upgrade POS systems and accept wireless input from a wide range of new payment devices, it’s critical that they know that data points mean the exact same thing at all points on the supply chain.

With that goal in mind, a key retail technology standards group unveiled a series of new schemas for retail pricing data consistency.

One of the most disheartening things for a technology journalist to learn is that a lot of readers look at magazines to see the ads.

Well, maybe not solely to look at the ads, but the fact that readers even glance at those dastardly marketing con jobs is enough to make us weep in our espressos.

As an emergency medicine physician, Dr. John D. Halamka immediately saw the life-saving potential of embedding tiny wireless RFID (radio-frequency identification) devices in people. As the CIO of the Harvard Medical School, he was naturally skeptical of such devices and wanted to test them thoroughly before recommending their adoption.

Speaking to an overflow crowd at the National Retail Federation’s Redefining Retail show, Metro Group CIO Zygmunt Mierdorf beamed in live footage of the company’s prototype RFID-enabled stores from Germany, showing interactive changing rooms that make clothing recommendations and have clerks bring additional pieces, a cashier shelf that instantly scans items (so the cashier doesn’t have to) and a privacy system that literally leaves the chip in the store.

As the retail tech industry prepared for it largest trade show, the cutting-edge nature of expected news announcements—with an emphasis on wireless, touch-screen, kiosk and PDA applications—suggested an industry that is exploring everything but committing to little.

A good example of an expected alliance is one involving IBM and some 40 companies—including Cuesol, Retek, Symbol Technologies and Triversity—that will pledge support for IBM’s Store Integration Framework. That program specializes in helping retailers to target and cater to local sales and promotional preferences.

The fact that shoplifters nabbed $1.5 million across 19 states is not a technology, people or training problem. Rather, it shows that management needs to re-evaluate its obsession with keeping the line moving.

The most well-planned and meticulously detailed crimes are often foiled by the commonplace. The thieves might map out their route precisely, coordinating it based on when various employees come and go. But security guard No. 9 gets a flat tire that morning, shows up 35 minutes late and ruins everything.

Spreading holiday joy among its suppliers, the nation’s largest retailer has softened its RFID compliance deadline.

In a briefing with analysts, Wal-Mart CIO Linda Dillman said that its top 100 suppliers—plus 37 “volunteer” suppliers—will start shipping cases and pallets by February to three Wal-Mart distribution centers. The original deadline was Jan. 1.

It has been written that the wiser the people, the more they are aware of how little they truly know. That unsettling thought nicely summarizes the state of RFID today. With each trial, companies discover how incredibly much they still do not understand. With each investment, they discover how it’s likely to be much more expensive than they had projected.

When I thought about retail IT operations in 2005, I envisioned an eccentric, wealthy hermit who lives in a comfortable mansion in the middle of the woods.

The hermit certainly knows about the big city and all of the glorious things he could buy there, but he is content. He has what he needs and a sufficient number of things that he wants. His home is sound and he doesn’t have a heck of a lot of motivation to go out and make it fancy and state-of-the-art. Maybe someday, he thinks.

Running the technology operations for a billion-dollar retail clothing chain is difficult enough during the holidays, let alone if most of your customers are too young to get their own credit cards, or even drive.

Just ask Ron Ehlers, vice president for Information Systems at Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., which runs 743 PacSun stores in 50 states and Puerto Rico.

In many ways, 2004 will be seen as a technological turning point for retail: the year that many technologies that have been hyped for years started to become real. Traditionally, retail has always been a mixed barcode for being technologically advanced.

Reigning over 175 home entertainment stores in 21 states, Tweeter CIO Bill Morrison looks cautiously at the calendar as the year-end holidays approach.

While many of his counterparts are trying to train oceans of seasonal employees and hoping that errors don’t obliterate consumers service, goodwill and inventory accuracy, Morrison sits back, confident in the chain’s decision to forgo any customer-facing seasonal help.

By late 2004, many large retailers were “ill-prepared” to handle the likely flood of data expected from RFID implementations, and many hadn’t even mastered their current bar-code systems, according to a report from analyst firm VDC (Venture Development Corp.).

“OK, we’ve now got most of our suppliers finally on board with automatic identification and data capture technologies via bar codes. Sure, let’s throw RFID at them, too,” said Mike Liard, RFID research program director at VDC. “You’ve got to address Problem A before you start addressing Problems B, C and D.”

With dramatically greater range and faster deployment—and with item-level tagging possible by next year—one former Boeing engineer thinks wireless may solve retail RFID headaches.

Claiming the wireless ability to read tags that are literally hundreds of meters away, a retired Boeing engineer thinks he can deliver item-level tagging years faster than can conventional RFID and with technology that is much more readily available.

In the clothing business, selling a suit that doesn’t fit a customer makes little sense, even if it’s highly profitable. The same can be said for retail e-commerce strategies: There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all Web site.

Casual Male, with more than 533 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, dominates the “big and tall men” apparel niche, which it identifies as a $6 billion market.

When Microsoft Corp. unveiled its embedded operating system for retailers, it stressed the mini-OS’ plug-and-play capability. But one key motivation for the company might have been the fear that retailers were considering upgrading without Microsoft.

Late 2004 had retailers at a key IT management point, with aging POS (point of sale) systems pressuring them to upgrade, but many standard upgrade paths unappealing. This drove some retailers to consider Linux.

Store managers are starting to complain that their data-collection efforts are baring fruit, says Evan Schuman, but they’re not being allowed to eat any of it. It’s a common complaint within retail circles.

As RFID stories start appearing in the consumer media and on the television network news shows, we’re starting to hear the same death and despair stories that were all the rage when the consumer media first discovered the Web.

My personal favorites were the early stories of shock when a reporter found out that government computers had pornographic images on them. That sounded pretty bad, until you realized that it was simply an Internet server that has Usenet newsgroups on it.

As the industry slowly moves ahead with RFID integration, one of the critical issues has been the need for retailers to seamlessly work with both bar-code and RFID readers. It’s difficult enough for 20-year-old point-of-sale devices to handle RFID, let alone handle RFID while still working with bar-code devices.

A dairy truck driver pulls up to a 7-Eleven convenience store and is preparing to deliver crates of milk when the store manager greets him.

“Hold on a moment,” the manager says, as he looks at an RFID readout on his PDA. “These crates over here are bad.”

Historically, the two most difficult technology decisions involve migration. Put simply: when to get into a technology/platform and when to get out.

A senior Best Buy executive gave a much needed reminder that while exit/entrance issues get all the headlines, it’s the detail-ridden implementation/execution issues that usually decide success or failure.