Future Retail

No More Interaction

The future of retail is closer than we actually think, especially post-pandemic. COVID-19 gave us a head start with technology, unfortunately it didn’t go so well with retail stores. With stores being closed for so long during the pandemic, people got used to having no interaction and stores took that into consideration. By 2025, 30% of retail will be done online, while Pre-COVID it was 17%. However, for people who prefer going into stores this experience will be less interactive with employees, such as what UNIQLO proposes.

UNIQLO has already taken a step into the future of retail by having self-checkout in over 3000 stores worldwide. Not only that, UNIQLO has also taken another step by using RFID which many other retailers have started using as well. What is interesting about the Japanese-owned Company is that they are the start of a macro trend. UNIQLO is the first Japanese retail store to use electronic tags worldwide known as RFID (radio frequency identification).

When it comes to checking out, it’s quite simple. No employee is required, just the customer and the self-checkout machine. Customers place the items into the self checkout machines, and this picks up the RFID labels on the items. The machine then calculates the total so the customer can pay. With UNIQLO being the trendsetters already, the next big thing going on is that RFID can automatically read information wirelessly. In the future, they will be used not just for checkout purposes, but also to obtain detailed information in analysing consumer behaviour, such as what items have been picked up, and whether an items has been bought or whether it was put back on the shelf.

RFID LABELS AND TAGS (no data)

UNIQLO has already implemented self checkout at the store (2019)