Mobile Solutions for Retailers | Wireless Data Collection, Printing & More

Just imagine if retail associates had customizable smartphone apps that allowed them to directly access printers—anywhere in the store, anytime. The possibilities for improving efficiencies are nearly endless, from re-pricing, to queue busting, and even receipt printing tasks. Retailers could create apps for printing inventory records, tracking tags, point-of-sale receipts, product labels, and much more.

For retailers, shifting to mobile devices for in-store tasks presents a wide range of avenues for improving the franchise’s bottom line. Adding smartphone technologies to the mobility mix gives employees a familiar, cost-effective, and reliable tool for streamlining their workload, freeing them up for more customer face time. The result is a vastly improved customer experience. And we all know, customer-friendly retailers command the lion’s share of the revenue stream.

Multiplatform SDKs and Smartphone Apps Unlock Vital Benefits

Today, an innovative wave of multiplatform software development kits (SDKs) are rapidly coming to market that enable retailers to create tailored apps, and print from multiple BlackBerry^® smartphone models or Windows Mobile^® devices and terminals. The optimal SDK includes intuitive documentation, source code samples, and on-phone demonstration modules that make creating custom applications easy and fast.

In fact, many retailers are empowering their employees with SDK-app enabled smartphones for line queue busting in airport terminals, accelerating point of sale (POS) tasks, and receipt-printing tasks. Printing tasks are not limited to text and graphic-only outputs. Retailers using thermal printers can leverage smartphones to create RFID tags, bar codes, and other complex labeling tasks.

SDK apps allow users to load and print right away, which provide retailers immediate productivity benefits, and eliminate the hassles associated with complex printer middleware. Label templates can be stored on the smartphone, terminal, or directly on the printer, enabling design reuse and scalability as labeling requirements evolve.

A Smart Choice – Print Now, Print Later, From Anywhere

Smartphones turn any location into a mobile office, and create a wide range of compelling business advantages. Smartphone-driven printing provides increased efficiency and flexibility that help lower operational costs and improve customer satisfaction. In most applications, retailers can see an almost immediate return on investment after implementing wireless mobility solutions—especially with the rapid decrease in smartphone prices.

Mobility technology delivers far-reaching benefits to retail operations, quickly, efficiently, and securely. Smartphone technology extends seamless mobility beyond traditional boundaries, enabling businesses to empower their employees with a cost-effective and flexible solution for enhancing the customer experience while driving revenue growth. For more information about multiplatform SDKs and smartphone utilities, see www.zebra.com/sdk.

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An innovative Spanish Butcher Shop installed self-service vending kiosks for ordering meat, sandwiches and more. 

A small chain of butcher shops in Northern Spain, Izarzugaza, is getting global buzz.  It does the staid old chips and soda vending machine one better.  Izarzugaza offers the option of using self-service, multilingual touchscreens at its shops to place orders, thus making it easier for foreign tourists to place orders in something other than Spanish. Read the rest of the article.

More about the around the clock self-service butcher shop.

 This is just one of many quirky self service vending installations around the world.  On the go and need a new bikini?  Craving the high life and want some caviar?  Feeling daring and ready for some graffiti art?  Read more and see photos here.

 Thinking about a self service kiosk?  Here’s more you should know.

www.zebra.com

Retail is one of the largest—and thought to be one of the least efficient industries in the world. Much of the inefficiency comes from error-prone and labor-intensive processes that waste time and money. According to Plunkett Research, Ltd, the U.S. retail sector (gasoline, automobiles, food service, and merchandise) totals $4.300 trillion, and employs over 15 million workers. Given this vast diversity, mobility technology offers the best solution for boosting retail efficiency, while improving inventory accuracy, and increasing revenue.

Many forward-thinking retailers have widely embraced mobile computers and printers to achieve near 100 percent inventory accuracy in supply chain management (SCM) operations. But, supply chain visibility is only one piece of the retail lifecycle. What happens after the product reaches the receiving area? How can mobility technology solve the ongoing challenges of in-store inventory management, re-pricing, and queue busting?

Streamline Inventory Management

Most important, retailers that use wireless-enabled mobile technology can take full advantage of bar code and RFID technology for in-store traceability. Store associates can use mobile computers to quickly scan received merchandise and verify quantity, then use a mobile printer to re-label the product if required. After placing products on shelves, hangers, or other store displays, employees can use mobile devices to perform fast, near 100-percent accurate inventory management—in hours as opposed to days using manual labor.

Simplify Re-Pricing

Stores constantly evaluate and change pricing to remain competitive. Retailers can integrate wireless mobile computers, scanners, and printers with their point of sale (POS) server to retrieve up-to-date price information. Store associates simply scan products on the spot, and compare the price marked on the shelf with the price displayed on the mobile computer, terminal, or other handheld like a smartphone.

If the product requires re-pricing, the associate can quickly create a new label with a mobile printer—within just a few seconds per product. In-aisle re-pricing with mobile printers enhances accuracy, ensuring customers see and pay the correct amount.

Automate Queue Busting

A long wait in the checkout line is the last thing a customer wants to endure. Mobility technology gives retailers a powerful way to automate queue-busting. Store associates can use their mobile device to pre-process part of the transaction, or complete the entire transaction on the spot so the customer can bypass the checkout counter completely. The efficiency benefits are not limited to mobile computers and rugged terminals. In fact, many retailers are now using smartphones loaded with SDK applications for queue-busting and receipt-printing tasks.

Proven time and again, mobility technology delivers far-reaching benefits, quickly, efficiently, and securely. By harnessing mobility technology, businesses can keep their retail inventories flowing while putting a smile on the customer’s face—a guaranteed way to improve the bottom line.

Learn More about how mobility technology maximizes value of inventory

www.zebra.com

Once on their way to extinction, coupons made a strong resurgence in 2009. While they offer consumers a chance to stretch their dollars further, they also offer real growth opportunities for retailers and manufacturers—if they know exactly who to target and how to leverage established and emerging coupon delivery vehicles.

And while clipping continues to be a primary means of distribution, manufacturers and retailers launched new ways to get coupons into consumers’ hands such as printable coupons on the Internet, and in-store kiosks.  Read Full Article

Learn more about Kiosk Printers

Best Practices for Self Service/Kiosk Implementation

The Challenges of PCI Compliance

 The challenges of meeting Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards and the horror stories of failing to comply continue to grow. Security breaches at several major retailers have resulted in estimated costs of as high as $1 billion per retailer.

Many retailers are unwittingly out of compliance with PCI DSS v1.2 because they do not realize its scope, particularly how the standard applies to peripherals. Because of the tougher wireless security requirements included in PCI DSS v1.2, many wireless computers, printers and other peripherals retailers use every day do not comply.

Click here to learn more about  PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) version 1.2 and how you can meet your security and business needs.

We all know that no mobility solution is complete without industrial agitators and centrifugal sifters, right? Okay, probably not. Attending a baking industry show can mess with your head. But while equipment like this may be important only to bakers, it holds little if any interest to say beer distributors or meat packers. What they do have in common though is how they ship, deliver and sell their goods once those products leave their factories.

Increasing the number of deliveries on routes or increasing the data accuracy either collected or received or the ability to conduct more transactions in the field are all challenges that face the food and beverage industry as a whole.

At the Canadian Bakery Showcase this week, we talked to a number of companies ranging from yeast suppliers to baked goods producers who recognized that migrating from handwritten receipt printing, being able to print transaction records or even conduct transactions in the field can add up to significant savings. If you were able to squeeze one or two more stops a day per driver, what additional revenue could you realize over the course of a month? Over the course of a year? If you were able to reduce the handwriting errors that necessitate corrective work to be done to fix the problem, how much time would you save? How would that impact your business?

Izzy’s Ice Cream Café in St. Paul, Minnesota, is using RFID technology to manage their bustling business and drive customer loyalty.  RFID labels are affixed to each of the ice cream containers.  When the strawberry container is empty and replaced with lemon custard, the label goes into action and updates the in-store signage, Twitter feed, website and Facebook page. In an instant Izzy’s fans know what’s delicious flavors are available.

Read more about Izzy’s Ice Cream and one Dairy Farmer’s innovative use of RFID technology.

Learn more about RFID