Wireless Price Verifiers
Wireless Price Verifiers: More Than Customer Service
By: Matt Pillar
$1 billion Boscov's Department Store finds radio frequency price verifiers improve customer service, as well as collect merchandising data and assist in marketing efforts.
Like most department store managers, Kathy Cahill doesn't fully understand the wireless networking technology that connects her self-serve price verification units with her store's pricing and inventory database. But she does know the price verification units are helping her take care of her customers. Cahill manages the Boscov's Department Store at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, NJ. Hers is the newest and largest addition to the Boscov's (Reading, PA) family of 37 stores. It's also one of the first five Boscov's stores to implement an RF (radio frequency) backbone and install IEE's (Van Nuys, CA) ScanVue 2.4 GHz RF price verifiers to run on it. But, while backbones and GHz mean nothing to Cahill, customer satisfaction means everything. "The price verifiers are here primarily for customer convenience," Cahill says. "They improve our level of customer service while allowing cashiers to concentrate on financial transactions. Customers can help themselves without waiting in line."
IEE’s ScanVue is available in a variety of configurations, including RF (radio frequency) and custom coloring.
Wireless Flexibility Benefits Customers And Employees
The Boscov's store at the Monmouth Mall operates a Symbol Technologies (Holtsville, NY) RF backbone, which is tied into an NCR (Dayton, OH) in-store processor. When a customer uses a price verifier to scan the bar code on merchandise, the in-store processor retrieves the merchandise's price information from an inventory database and transmits pricing information to the price verifier. The fact that a wired network doesn't ground the units makes them mobile. In the event store management wishes to move a unit from a low-traffic area to a high-traffic area, the only requirement is a power outlet. Visibility, Cahill says, is the key to the success of price verifiers. The locations of the eight units installed on poles at Cahill's Boscov's store were selected by analyzing traffic patterns in the store and placing them where they'd be most convenient for customers. "We've found the units in children's wear and domestics [China, housewares] see the most use," she says. "They are the departments that are hardest to maintain ticketing in, as opposed to ready to wear, where all merchandise has a tag or is marked by a sign." Bill Berney, manager of store systems tech support at Boscov's headquarters, explains that while the store manager's retail experience and instinct is valuable, the company is carefully charting usage patterns to ensure the price verifiers are in the right spots. "Logs are created that chart each unit's usage, and we can extract and analyze that data," he says. "We're monitoring the volume and frequency of each unit's usage to find out if we need to place them in different areas." Berney says that since switching from the wired version of ScanVue to the RF version price verifiers, usage has increased more than fourfold. He attributes this to the flexibility of the unit's placement when network cabling is not an issue. Berney cites the price verifiers at Boscov's as one of the lowest-maintenance technology implementations the store operates. "There's nothing for store employees to learn because we operate the units from the central office. A store employee may occasionally need to reboot a unit by simply unplugging it and plugging it back in," he explains. Beyond that, the only reprogramming required is the occasional changing of promotional messaging, which runs on the screen when the unit is not engaged with a customer.
Make The Installation Work For Everyone
Beyond selection of the physical location of each price verifier within the store, Boscov's management was careful to make the units accessible to everyone. "We follow regulations set forth by the Disabilities Act in regard to height and viewing angle," Berney says. "The units are pole mounted 48 inches above the floor, so even wheelchair-bound customers can place merchandise below the unit's scanner." Berney claims that the price verifier's 5.5-inch active matrix liquid crystal display screen can be viewed from any angle. Aisles leading up to the poles where price verifiers are mounted must be wide and accessible. The brightly colored units are further identified by signage above them. "People are in a rush, and if they see a simple, clean user interface where they can get the information they're looking for quickly, they're going to use it," says Berney.
Data Collection And Advertising Vehicles In Disguise
Customers may be number one with Boscov's, but it would be foolish for retailers to ignore the fringe benefits of the data collected by price verifiers. There's more justification for installing the system than the desire for better customer service. Each time a customer uses the unit to scan merchandise for a price, information such as date, time, product description, and the location or department where the item was scanned is logged. Consider the value a store manager like Cahill would get out of knowing that a particular item's price was checked by her customers 300 times in one week, but only purchased twice. Given the time to extract and analyze data from these logs, store managers are equipped with knowledge of merchandise interest and movement. Another benefit of price verifiers, especially full-color, graphic-intensive ones, is the advertising medium they offer. "The central office programs promotional messages into the units," Cahill explains. "We run advertising messages pertaining to our credit offers, customer loyalty programs, new store locations, and merchandise sales on the price verifiers' screens." Berney will use the information he pulls from the data collected from stores like the one at the Monmouth Mall to justify the expense of the units at other store locations. "Right now, more than half of our stores have RF capability," he says. "We plan on installing the system at two new stores we're opening this year, then we'll look at the feasibility of installing the RF price verifiers in stores that are RF capable."
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