Description
Over the years as the consumer demand increased and the retailers geared up to meet this increase, technology evolved rapidly to support this growth
Technology in Retail:
Over the years as the consumer demand increased and the retailers geared up to meet this
increase, technology evolved rapidly to support this growth. The hardware and software tools
that have now become almost essential for retailing can be into 2 broad categories.
Customer Interfacing Systems:
Bar Coding and Scanners
Point of sale systems use scanners and bar coding to identify an item, use pre-stored data to
calculate the cost and generate the total bill for a client. Tunnel Scanning is a new concept where
the consumer pushes the full shopping cart through an electronic gate to the point of sale. In a
matter of seconds, the items in the cart are hit with laser beams and scanned. All that the
consumer has to do is to pay for the goods.
Payment
Payment through credit cards has become quite widespread and this enables a fast and easy
payment process. Electronic cheque conversion, a recent development in this area, processes a
cheque electronically by transmitting transaction information to the retailer and consumer's bank.
Rather than manually process a cheque, the retailer voids it and hands it back to the consumer
along with a receipt, having digitally captured and stored the image of the cheque, which makes
the process very fast.
Internet
Internet is also rapidly evolving as a customer interface, removing the need of a consumer
physically visiting the store.
doc_524514691.docx
Over the years as the consumer demand increased and the retailers geared up to meet this increase, technology evolved rapidly to support this growth
Technology in Retail:
Over the years as the consumer demand increased and the retailers geared up to meet this
increase, technology evolved rapidly to support this growth. The hardware and software tools
that have now become almost essential for retailing can be into 2 broad categories.
Customer Interfacing Systems:
Bar Coding and Scanners
Point of sale systems use scanners and bar coding to identify an item, use pre-stored data to
calculate the cost and generate the total bill for a client. Tunnel Scanning is a new concept where
the consumer pushes the full shopping cart through an electronic gate to the point of sale. In a
matter of seconds, the items in the cart are hit with laser beams and scanned. All that the
consumer has to do is to pay for the goods.
Payment
Payment through credit cards has become quite widespread and this enables a fast and easy
payment process. Electronic cheque conversion, a recent development in this area, processes a
cheque electronically by transmitting transaction information to the retailer and consumer's bank.
Rather than manually process a cheque, the retailer voids it and hands it back to the consumer
along with a receipt, having digitally captured and stored the image of the cheque, which makes
the process very fast.
Internet
Internet is also rapidly evolving as a customer interface, removing the need of a consumer
physically visiting the store.
doc_524514691.docx