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6/23/2008	Paula Rosenblum
Is RFID's Value coming into Focus?
The announcement on Monday June 23, that Checkpoint is acquiring OatSystems brought back memories of the heady days of the hype cycle (I think that’s what Gartner calls it) of RFID technology. Suddenly the world of RFID gets interesting. I know Wal-Mart and Carrefour have achieved some kind of savings in their supply chains. I really don’t quite understand how or why, but I believe them. But this, I can see and touch and visualize. What if we could replace store physical inventories with cycle counts, too? And what if we could do it for pretty close to free? What if those same tags used to control theft in our stores could serve as license plates too? There’d be no significant up-charge… and with enough cycle counts, after a couple of years – NO MORE PHYSICAL INVENTORIES. Rather than attempting to blanket the store with RFID readers and antennae, why not have a store associate walk a few aisles, and scan merchandise into and out of the back room as well. What do you think?
keywords: Retailer, Retail IT, RFID, Acquisition, Checkpoint, OatSytems
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6/10/2008	Paula Rosenblum
Zappos' Pay to Quit: Employee-centricity Takes Center Stage
Last week I observed a fascinating conversation on RetailWire about Zappos’ “Pay to Quit” policy. In brief, about a week into a new employee’s training period, someone will approach him (or her) in private and ask candidly if he believes the job at Zappos is the right choice and if it’s a place he believes he will be happy. An offer of $1500 to terminate and walk away is made then and there. According to Internet Retailer, only 3% of new employees actually take advantage of the offer. That’s pretty outrageous. That means 97% of new hires are in it for something more than the quick buck. Now this is “Xtreme retailing” for many reasons, but we'd really like to know your thoughts.
keywords: Retail, Zappos, IT, Workforce Managment, Employee
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5/20/2008	Brian Kilcourse
A Day Late and a Dollar Short?
Last week, a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee anti-trust task force took up proposed legislation (H.R. 5546) that is intended to force Visa and MasterCard to directly negotiate with retailers the “interchange fee” for each online credit card transaction. According to the proposed legislation, if such negotiations fail, a panel of three administrative law judges in the Justice Department would set the rates. This is the latest move by lawmakers to put more controls on the credit-card industries. Visa (of course) says the bill is anti-competitive. We have to ask, what took so long for Congress to act? After all, credit card payment systems are over 30 years old now. We’re supposedly entering a new age of secure debit-based and stored-value systems that will render credit cards obsolete (once consumers adopt the new alternatives, which could accelerate given the outrageous interest rates that banks charge consumers). What do you think?
keywords: Retail, Retail IT, VISA, MasterCard, PCI, Congress, Data Theft, Credit Card, Payment Regulation
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