StepOne at NRF09

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NRF 2009

NRF 2009

For the NRF show our focus was on our suite of snapRETAIL products, SNAP Store Performance and Shopping Experience Apps.  Most of the application we have shown before, but this year we added Stock Room Management and an MK500 Item Checker.  Both of which we think have great potential and were both well received by those customers we talked with.

Despite the financial collapse and the reduced traffic at NRF09, it was still one of our better shows.  Each year we get better at setting up our trade show booth and in continue to improve our entire company.  However, despite having a good show, the show was somewhat disappointing since everything we are doing is so much better than ever before.  It’s just all that more difficult due to the economy.

The StepOne Booth

For the second year, we decided to have our own booth.  In June when we made the decision, it was a no-brainer, but with the economic collapse leading up to the show, it was looking like a less good idea and we scaled back some of our plans.  Although we decided to cut back on some expenses, we did continue to improve our presence at the show and despite a generally poor attendance and floor traffic, we still had a good show.

While having our own booth is a huge amount of effort and expense for a small software company, we continue to see it as an important part of our overall marketing strategy.

This year, we had Sharp Creative design the graphics and layout of the booth.  It really makes a big difference having a real marketing company develop our booth and have some real graphics.  We had originally planned on replacing our booth this year, but ending up “re-skinning” the old one with a bunch of vinyl graphics.

In general that new graphics worked out great, but due to some scheduling challenges we weren’t able to set up the booth ahead of time to test everything out.  When Todd and I started setting it up everything was going great until we went to set up the corner pieces, the mobility boulevard street signs.  Originally the two mobility boulevard signs were to be attached on the rounded corners of the booth, but the vinyl that they were printed on were too stiff to attach to the curved partitions.  After an hour of panic and reusing some of the graphics from last year, we ended up with something that looked pretty good.  With a couple of more tweaks we should be in good shape for the rest of the year.

The Motorola Booth

Since we are one of Motorola’s top ISV’s we also had a pod in Motorola’s area, one of the busiest parts of the entire show.  This has proven to be a great source of leads for us at the show since nearly every retailer visits this area.

This year we had a great location, right in the front corner of the booth, which gave us great visibility at the show.  We definitely had better traffic in the Moto booth than our own.  They had a steady stream of customer tours through the booth and it also gave us a great opportunity to network with the other vendors and Motorola team.

In addition, Motorola had their traditional networking event at the Rainbow Room on Monday night which for us is a huge networking event since we have such a long history with Motorola (Symbol).  This year was no different.   After a slow first day of traffic on the floor, we were able to more than make up for it with this event.  It will be strange when NRF moves to Washington DC in 2011 and all the traditions will change.

Spreading the News

This year we limited the handouts to the StepOne News and a snapRETAIL handout.  This ended up working out very well, though we do need to find a more cost effective way to print our collateral.

StepOne News – NRF 2009 Edition

The StepOne News gives us the ability to highlight many of the great things that are happening at StepOne.  This year we featured the new Stock Room Management application, our MK500 Item Checker and the Mobility Boulevard concept.

snapRETAIL Handout

In contrast, the snapRETAIL is a much more traditional product handout that gives a nice overview of our snapRETAIL set of products.  It provides a standard feature summary of snapRETAIL and the features that is available.   It gives a nice summary of the products and provides a good complement to the newspaper.

Wrapping It Up

So despite one of the worst economy in recorded history and a somber NRF, it was still a good tradeshow for us at StepOne.  Now that we are back home we’ll follow up on the opportunities and see if it was truly a worthwhile event.

Microsoft Tags Brings Barcodes to the Phone

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StepOne Blog (www.StepOneSystems.com/blog/)

StepOne Systems Blog

One of the big things that cell phones really need is a way to scan barcodes.  Ideally it would be nice to scan in standard barcodes such as UPCs.  But in other cases it would be nice to just enter a single piece of information in to the phone quickely such as URLs, email addresses, etc.  This is where the Microsoft Tag will provide a good solution.

For instance, here is a Microsoft Tag for the StepOne Blog.  I can just print this barcode on my business card, or marketing collateral and a mobile user can just “snap” the image with my mobile camera and it will launch Internet Explorer and display our blog.  Very cool, and great for our marketing.

The other thing that’s very cool is that I don’t even have to print the Microsoft Tag on paper.  It will work on anything with reasonable resolution that works with a mobile camera.  The one I really like is scanning the image off of the computer monitor, but it can also scan off of the TV, movie screen, side of a bus, whatever.  This is great for getting long URLs in to the phone quickly.

Microsoft Tag Reader

To try it out, download the application from http://gettag.mobi/.  If you do this from your mobile device it will identify the correct download for your phone and provide it to you.  Alternately, you can download the application on your desktop and then transfer it to the phone yourself.

It’s also nice that Microsoft has realized that not everyone is running Windows Mobile and are providing download for a large number of phones.  The current list is: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Java 2 Micro Edition, PalmOS, Symbian S60, Symbian S60 1st Edit, Symbian S60 2nd Edit, Symbian S60 3rd Edit, Windows Mobile.  A pretty good list.

Microsoft Tag Limitations

However the only way to “snap” a Microsoft Tag is to use the Microsoft Tag Reader.  Just looking at it I can already see potential applications that might take advantage of Microsoft Tags, but since there isn’t an SDK to work with them.  However, at NRF I spoke with some of the Microsoft Reps and they said it was under consideration.

The other limitation that I see is how the tags are processed.  What happens is Tag Reader “snaps” the tag and the data is then sent to the Microsoft Tag site which then decodes the tag and provides the information required.  This means a couple of things.  First of all, you must be connected to the Internet in order to “snap” a Microsoft Tag.  So disconnected use is out.

The other part of that restriction is that I can not dynamically generate tags on the fly.  For instance, I’d like to generate a unique tag that contains the user ID, and provide a custom tag to direct them to their web account.  However, since each tag must be created at the Microsoft Tag site this isn’t practical.

However it is very cool technology and only in Beta.  I’m looking forward to see how it will be used.

More Information:

NRF09: The Retail’s Big Show Wasn’t So Big

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NRF 2009

NRF 2009

This was my fourth year attending NRF as a vendor and it was definitely one of the more unusual.   Despite some reports that I’ve seen, traffic on the exhibition was the lightest I’ve ever seen, and from talking to other people there, it’s the least traffic they can remember.  It’s clear that the difficult financial environment has made a real impact at this show.  While most of the regular retailers were there, they either had fewer people, or like one company I know of, canceled at the last moment.

That is not to say that it was a ghost town either.  It was clear which companies were doing relatively well and were looking to extend their lead through technical investments.  There was a good representation of the dollar stores, value priced retailers, etc.  It’s nice to see that someone is doing reasonably well in these difficult times.

The other thing that really resonated was what one of the Motorola folks told me, we are living in a “Do or Die” type of world.  In this retail environment you can make one of two choices, keep “Doing Something” to fight through the difficult times, or try to survive by not doing anything.  Although the second choice may seem prudent at first, it can easily turn in to the death of the company as their competitors continue to make improvement.

Many of the companies we talked to were clearly living this mantra, looking for incremental ways to improve their business, manage their inventory, and overall just do things better.  In our case these efforts are typically focused on mobile applications, providing better inventory management, pricing management, and customer interfacing.

Clearly others are seeing this as an important area to invest as well.  As I walked around the floor there was a continued increase in the number of mobile software vendors and companies providing mobile extensions to their existing products such as allowing mobile access to their POS and back-end systems.  Clearly there is a real movement to deploy more mobile retail applications.

I also saw a lot more hardware vendors providing their solutions.  Of course there were the big players such as Motorola (Symbol), Intermec, and Honeywell (formerly HHP), but there were many smaller vendors pitching low cost and unique form factors.

NRF continues to be the one big must attend retail show of the year and of course we’ll be back again next year.  I just hope next year it returns to the levels of previous years.

Seven Springs Ski Rental System

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Seven Springs

Seven Springs Ski Resort

Last Friday I went to Seven Springs for a little bit of skiing.  It has been almost three years since I’ve been able to ski, and I was really looking forward to it.  The conditions were ideal, thirty degrees with packed powdered and the skiing was great.  Although the lift lines were a bit long since they didn’t have the all of the slopes open.

However, the real disappointment was with their new Ski Rental System.  While I enjoy skiing, I have yet to make the investment in owning my own equipment, so I headed down to rent some skiis.  I got there and they had installed a whole new system for tracking the renters, processing the waivers, and tracking the equipment that was being handed out.

Normally, as a techie, I would be in favor of automating this type of process since this is the type of applications we develop.  But clearly whoever implemented this system completely ignored the human element of the system, as well as load testing the system for the requirements of a busy holiday weekend.

In the old system, the renters came in to a set of wide rows that had desks on one side with waiver forms.  The renter filled out the form, handed it to the cashier at the end of the row who created the rental ticket, lift ticket, kept a copy of the waiver, and processed the payment.  As the renter went through the system they got their equipment, and a person at the exit checked the slip, the renters ID, and the ID of the skis that were being rented.  When the equipment was returned it was checked back in to the system.

In the new system, there are now a set of flat panel displays on the counters to the left of the wide rows.  The renters now type there waiver information on these computers, and then go to the cashier at the end of the line to pay for their equipment and lift tickets.  Upon payment they receive a barcode to indicate what they have rented, as well as the lift ticket.  Next the go to get their equipment, where the scanned the barcode on the rental ticket, the boots, and the skiis.  Finally, at the exit they scan the ticket, skiis, and check the users ID.

Overall thhis is not a bad system, except for several problems with the actual implementation of the system.

  • The rows that were previously adequate for the paper forms, were now way too narrow for the people typing their information in to the kiosks, with whole families surrounding the terminal.  It was difficult to look down the row through all of the people to see which computers were available which left them under-utilized.  Then once you were able to find a computer and get through the form, there was no simple way to keep track of where people are in the line, so there is inevitable confusion and line-cutting.
  • Upon arriving at the cashier you order is not actually filled in.  The cashier searches for your last name in the system and then asks for the details of your purchase, perhaps combining multiple users in the system.
  • Next in the system were long lines at the ski equipment stand.  There are often delays here because the staff has to get the type of skiis you would like to rent, find appropriate skis, and configure them for the renter.  However, add to this the computers being extremely slow or down to process the requests, and you end up with people waiting twenty minutes, just to get their skis.  I overheard someone saying the delays were being caused by the anti-virus software.
  • Finally, there is another line to get out of the exit with your skis where they check the equipment in the computer once again.  Again slower than it needed to be.

So I ended up spending about thirty minutes to rent a pair of skis, boots, and poles instead of spending that time on the slopes.  Overall a very slow and frustrating start to an otherwise great day of skiing which makes me really question whether I should just stop at one of the other ski rental places outside of the resort.

Of course it’s easy to complain about these types of problems, and perhaps I was just lucky enough to experience the Seven Springs Ski Rental System at the the wrong time.  Regardless, I feel it is only appropriate to offer some suggestions on how they could improve this system.

  • First, I’d ditch the entich row system that they’ve implemented for the cashiers.  They already have an online system for purchasing lift tickets and equipment rentals so they should just make it available for people at the resort as well.  This would be a relatively simple process of laying out the entry to the ski rental to allow people to just walk up to a computer, lined up on a table or against a wall (like at the library), to do the entire transaction, including payment.  At completion they would receive a printed barcode that would be processed as if I had done it at home at the express line.This eliminates the confusion among the renters in the rows, reduces the work for the cashiers, and simplifies the entire process.
  • Next I would consider eliminating the computers where the skis are picked up.  They renters can still provide the printed barcode, but scanning the information is redundant with the rental exit process.  For those people who may have lost the barcode, provide a kiosk in the rental where they can reprint a ticket using a credit card, or other personal information.
  • At the exit point, I would do the final scan of all of the rental equipment, with the personal ID confirmation.  This would be the only point where it needs to be scanned in.
  • Seven Springs should also look at the barcodes that are being used on the equipment itself.  This equipment must endure the pounding of the snow, ice, rocks, and abuse the skiers dish out.  They need to be more durable than the ones I saw.  Particularly on the boots.
  • Load testing of the system to ensure that it can support peak season.  I don’t knonw if this occurred, but they had obvious performance issues.
  • Finally, perhaps they have already done this, but now that they’ve invested in this system and have barcoded their inventory they should have a handheld system to use for inventory, service tracking, lost equipment recovery, etc.

So at this point my recommendation for fellow skiers is to either use the online system to avoid the hassle with the cashier lines, or rent at one of the locations outside of the resort.

The Internet UPC Database

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In a previous post I discussed how to get EAN and UPC barcode information from the Global Electronic Party Information Register (GEPIR).

This provides a great resource for the official registration for the barcode, but provides very little information about the actual item. Typically what you’d like to be able to do is scan a UPC or EAN, and then be able to provide information about the actual item.  Most important is a description of the item, size/weight, vendor, and other information.

The Internet UPC Database is a website that provides access to this type of data for almost 1,000,000 of items.  The interface is very simple, just type in your UPC or EAN number and basic information is displayed for the item.  In the case, that your items does not appear, you get an Item Not Found message and the opportunity to contribute your item to the database.

In my testing I was pleasantly surprised by the number of items in the database.  It had a lot of the items in my office, and even ones I was surprised it would know about, like this Office Depot composition book.  The data also seems to be well maintained and kept clean.

It is also possible to download the data.  However, the database is over 100MB and growing fast, so unless you have a significant application I’d just access the website directly.

Mobile Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) Receiving

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One of the most common EDI transactions used in retail is the Advance Shipping Notice (EDI 856).  This notice is sent by the store’s vendor to inform the retailer that a shipment is being delivered and allows the retailer to plan for the delivery of the items in the shipment.

While the ASN alerts the store that the items are being delivered and will be arriving shortly, it is not adequate to update the store’s inventory or the accounting system.  These systems require that someone verifies that the items in the shipment have actually been physically received by the store or distribution center.

In the past, the only way to track the receipt of the shipment was a manual process.  The store manager would receive a print out from the order management system of the expected shipments.  Then once the shipment arrived, someone at the store would locate the printed report, match the PO to the shipping documents, receive the shipment, check that the merchandise matched the order and verify that it was not damaged.  Finally, they manually created a paper receiving report that was sent to headquarters, and ultimately keyed in to the order management system.  This paper based manual process is extremely time consuming and error prone.

However, with a properly designed mobile ASN receiving application, the entire processing of ASN shipments can be fully automated.  As the order management system receives an ASN message from the vendor, a copy is forwarded to the mobile inventory management system.  Then when the shipment is  received, the person at the store uses a mobile terminal to find the ASN and receive the shipment.

The mobile application then scans each carton, or even every item in the shipment, to verify that the correct items have been received.  In addition, the application can track damaged items and rejected shipments.  Once the shipment has been received, a message is then automatically sent to the order management system, where it is audited optionally sends a Receiving Advice message (EDI 861) to inform the vendor that the shipment was received.  All of this with a simple to use mobile appilcation.

The mobile ASN receiving application is a cricital component of any perpetual inventory system and is typically used to track all shipments within the retailer, including shipments from the distribution center and store-to-store transfers.

Motorola Joins the Android Revolution

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In a recent development, Motorola is making a major investment in supporting Android on mid-range Motorola phones.  In the high end handhelds they are still supporting Windows Mobile/CE, but in the mid-range they are adopting Android.

This will finally bring a real application environment to the average phone and people will no longer have to make the decision to invest hundreds of dollars in a Blackberry or Windows Mobile Phone.  Now they will have a mobile platform with a complete set of mobile capabilities.

The other advantage that Motorola has in this market is that their legacy in barcode scanning through their Symbol acquisition.  We can now realistically have barcode scanning in a mid-range handheld which will open a whole new world of applications such as ShopSavvy.  In the past Symbol has made attempts to bring scanning to the mobile phone, but with very limited success.

Of course the next question will be with the higher end terminals.  With all of the capabilities that are coming with the Android platform, what will happen to the high-end terminals.

Is my SmartPhone my new computer? YES!

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Information Week 10/06/08

Information Week 10/06/08

Information Week put together a very interesting article as it proposes the idea that your smartphone or mobile computer is your next computer.  I think the answer is a resounding yes!

If the last 15 years in IT have taught us anything, it is that our appetite for access to information and communication is almost endless.  We want and need it immediately…right at the very moment it is generated, collected, or required for action.  It should not be separated from the task at hand no matter how trivial the task might be.

Current “smartphone” demand is focused primarily on communication (voice-driven cell phones with Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and I-Phone).  Email, texting, and mobile web access have vastly increased the means by which we communicate as well as the locations and times in which it is available.

The next challenge comes from adding meaningful information to the smartphone… enterprise applications and tools that are built not only to fit within the limits of the smaller technology (CPU, batteries, small screens, etc.), but the work flow that corresponds to the application function and the business rules established by the company.

Should be fun!

Here is the link to the article.

Zebra EM 220 Ultra Mobile BlueTooth Printer

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Zebra EM 220

Zebra EM 220

Zebra has just released the Zebra EM 220, a cool new Ultra Mobile BlueTooth Printer.  This printer is 4.99” x 3.13″ x 1.72” and weighs only .52 lbs (with battery).  To understand how small the EM 220 is, compare it to Zebra’s popular QL 220 Plus.  The EM 220 is roughly a third the size and half the weight of the QL 220 (3.57″ x 7.15″ x 2.96″, 1.04 lbs.).

It’s also amazing how much functionality they have squeezed in to this mobile printer.  It includes USB communications making it very easy to interface with, and also includes a BlueTooth and magnetic stripe option.

Of course the small size does have it costs.  The main limitation with the EM 220 is the smaller roll diameter which reduces the number of labels on each roll of label stock.  While in some high volume printing scenarios the smaller spool size will be a problem, in most field service cases, the smaller spool is not a concern and the smaller size and lighter weight will be greatly appreciated.

Overall this looks like a great little mobile printer that will be especially good for out of the office mobile applications with limited printing requirements.  This is typically the case in DSD or field service applications where the printing is limited to leaving a customer receipt.

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Getting Barcode Information from GEPIR

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GS1 Global GEPIR

GS1 Global GEPIR

There has always been a mystery about the information contained in the barcodes we see every day.  Actually there is a lot of information contained in the barcodes that is useful if we could only find the information. In the past this was difficult, but now the GS1 is providing public access to much of this information with the Global Electronic Party Information Register (GEPIR).

The GEPIR service contains basic information on over 1,000,000 companies, provided by the GS1 Member Organizations in over 100 countries.  This provides a  global database of company, location, and item information for GS1 barcodes around the world.

This free service provides a simple way to answer the following questions:

  • Who made the product with an EAN or UPC barcode?  Get company information from a GTIN (EAN/UPC)
  • Where was this carton shipped from?  Get carton and other shipping container information with the SSCC barcodes.
  • What is a company’s GLN number?  Look up a company by GLN number, or search by name

All this and more is provided by GEPIR. Related Links: