Interactive mirrors, intelligent screens, faster checkouts EHI awards prizes for best IT solutions in retail

Cologne/Duesseldorf, 03-03-2010 – At the festive evening event in the “Club” of the Capitol Theatre in Düsseldorf, organised on the occasion of EuroCIS, EHI has distributed for the third time its retail technology awards europe (reta). For the first time three prizes of equal standing were awarded in each of the three categories Best Customer Experience, Best In-store Solution and Best Enterprise Solution.

Best Customer Experience

The winners in this category are the Swiss hypermarket operator Manor, the French supermarket chain Intermarché and the German fashion retailer s. Oliver.

Manor has been awarded a prize for its use of the “TweetMirror”, an interactive, intelligent and easy-to-operate mirror, which allows customers to photograph themselves in various outfits and from different angles and to subsequently compare the pictures taken by the camera. If they so wish, they can then send the different combinations by e-mail, mobile phone or Twitter to friends and acquaintances to get their opinion. The motive for the use of the intelligent mirror, developed by Nedap retail, is that it makes the customer’s shopping experience more attractive.

Intermarché uses a self-checkout system developed by IBM which can be adapted in a flexible manner to the shopping habits of the customers. The shopping trolley or shopping basket is placed on scales and the scanned products then go to an empty trolley or basket on stand-by at the checkout. The system allows the store’s manager to switch smoothly from “trolley mode” to “basket mode”. According to the company 65 percent of its customers use this self-checkout system, which can reduce the checkout time by 30 percent.

s. Oliver, the fashion company that boasts 2,360 shops in 30 countries, has gone for the installation of screens in the vicinity of waiting rooms. The system developed by Online-Software AG and Vis-a-pix recognizes the sex of the viewers and shows films with information about the new collections tailored to the relevant target group.

Best In-store Solution

In the category In-store Solutions the following companies were awarded a prize this year: Albert Heijn, Sonae and The Co-operative Group.

Albert Heijn, a leading food retailer in the Netherlands, uses Dynamic Graphical Electronic Shelf Labelling in its stores. The system was developed by the IT partners Cap Gemini Netherlands and Toshiba Netherlands. The purpose of the system is to coordinate the price labelling of fresh produce on the shelves with the existing stock in order to sell, if possible, the entire stock at an optimum price.

Sonae, a Portuguese retailer with 14 distribution channels and 832 shops, received its award for the use of the so-called Mobile Portal. This solution, which was developed by the company’s own IT department in cooperation with Tlantic SI, Pontifice Universidade Catolica, Denso, Sisqual and Zebra, allows the employees to introduce important information in multiple fields into the EDP system, on site and wirelessly, and without having to leave the shop or the vicinity of the customer. This leads to huge time savings while improving customer service.

The Co-operative Group is Britain’s largest co-operative retailer. Not only is it the fifth largest food retailer in Britain, it is also successful as a chemist’s and a travel agent, among other things. The Co-operative Group received the award for its Green-POS Initiative, with which 700 tonnes of CO2 emissions could be avoided last year. At the same time 1.7 million kWh, or an annual 200,000 dollars worth, could be saved on electricity. To that end The Co-operative Group has introduced the new generation of IBM’s SurePOS line, which already by its power-saving components lowers energy consumption. In addition, it has also been possible to save energy by using Wake-on-LAN and the “Deep-Sleep” mode.

Best Enterprise Solution

REWE Informations-Systeme GmbH, Gerry Weber International and Otto International received the awards in the category Best Enterprise Solution.

REWE Informations-System GmbH, the central IT provider of the REWE Group, presented a convincing further development of ZAM (Zentrale Abbildung der Märkte/central store management system) in which the processing sequence throughout the company – whether it concerns independent retailers or hypermarkets – is mapped and controlled by the system. The IT partners in this case were InnovationsSoftware Technology GmbH, IBM, T-Systems, Höft&Wessel, as well as Dr.Eckhardt and Partner GmbH.

Gerry Weber, a fashion group that is active worldwide with 300 proprietary shops and 1,400 shop-in-shop units, was distinguished for the introduction of the RFID technology (radio frequency identification) in the clothing industry in order to optimise the logistics and retail processes, as well as for the simultaneous use of that technology as a new form of merchandise protection. The Gerry Weber group is the first company in Germany to use RFID as an article surveillance technology. A further innovation are the RFID labels made of fabric, which in future the company will sew directly into the garments. The introduction of the new system enjoyed the support of competent IT partners: Avery Dennison Torex ,Salt Solution and T-Systems played an important part in the implementation.

Otto International, which is responsible for the purchasing and procurement activities of the multi-channel retail company Otto Group, was able to convince the jury with its multi-layered system “T2BOrder“. With that system the various systems and processes of Otto International are brought together on a single platform. The system also proves to be an efficient and user-friendly tool for the employees. For the implementation of the system Otto International was assisted by Ethalon GmbH.

The awards were presented by the partners of the evening’s event, IBM and VISA Europe, and by the editor-in-chief of EHI Publishing.


About EHI

EHI is a research, training and consultancy institute for the retail industry and its partners. The international EHI-Retail-Network covers around 500 Member-Companies. EHI was founded in 1951. Managing Directors are Michael Gerling and Prof. Prof. E.h. (RUS) Dr. Bernd Hallier. EHI is a 50%-shareholder in GS1 Germany (former known as CCG). They coordinate the European EAN in Germany. In cooperation with EHI the Messe Düsseldorf organises EuroShop, the world's largest trade fair for capital goods for the retail industry, and EuroCIS, showing the latest products, solutions and trends in IT and security.

Publisher:
EHI Retail Institute e. V., Spichernstraße 55, 50672 Cologne, Germany, www.ehi.org
Phone.: +49 (0)2 21/5 79 93-0, Fax: -45

Contact:
Cetin Acar, Manager Research Unit IT, phone: -12, mailto:acar@ehi.org
Ute Holtmann, Director Public Relations, phone: -42, mailto:holtmann@ehi.org