As a retail industry supporter and sometime shopper, it’s also easy to see that retailers want to enhance the customer experience and cater to their needs. This is where NRF’s Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) community is putting its focus next.

The fast-paced world of retail technology hasn’t stopped ARTS from taking the time to think about ways to improve the conditions of society as well as the store-to-consumer interface. That’s why the Change4Charity work team was created and has already been getting lots of buzz.

The team mission is to assist both retailers and consumers in incorporating charitable giving into the purchase experience at the checkout line. This point-of-service innovation would be an important step forward for the retail industry, making it easier for them to support their communities and decrease the cost for retailers to run the charity programs.

The initiative for the team grew out of a discussion at the RetailROI’s – Retail Orphan Initiative — fourth annual “Super Saturday” event held during the kick-off weekend of Retail’s BIG Show in January. Greg Buzek, president of IHL Consulting and head of RetailROI, spearheaded the dialogue on how to comprehensively accept donations supporting different types of selling systems without requiring cashier participation. This would expedite the process while preserving the privacy and comfort of the customer – the overall goal of the standard.

The Change4Charity work team is already hard at work. But, as the saying goes, there is strength in numbers. If you are interested in participating or want to know more information, contact ARTS Administration Vice President Karen Shunk.

ARTS has paved the way for retail technology standards over the past two decades. From guiding retailers on their path to achieving seamless integration with point-of-sale and cloud systems, business process models, schemas, mobile, social commerce and more – you could say ARTS has led the retail industry through the information technology learning curve. And last month during the Roadmap for 2013 and Beyond session at Retail’s BIG Show, industry leaders took the stage to discuss why ARTS products are essential to their business, and previewed some of the best ideas for retailers’ technical solutions in the year ahead.

The discussion was led by Darrell Sandefur, director of digital architecture at Luxottica Retail. Sandefur also welcomed other guest speakers whose work with ARTS has helped produce some of its best-known standards. Below are a few key highlights from each speaker explaining which specific aspect of ARTS has benefited their business:

• John Rohland, associate vice president of club sales systems at BJ’s Wholesale  Club, used his career as a case study to demonstrate the importance ARTS’ Unified POS standard. Unified POS provides a consistent and exact framework for programming point-of-sales devices, and the standard is platform-independent as well as vendor-neutral. During his presentation Rohland emphasized that, ARTS “supplies the tools needed to make your jobs easier.”

• Tim Hood, vice president and chief solution architect for retail at SAP AG followed, discussing ARTS’ latest Payments Integration white paper, which was released during the BIG Show. Hood covered challenges in the payments arena surrounding EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) requirements, mobile payments and new payment models, and maintaining compliance with PCI security standards. Hood also discussed new “chip and pin” requirements. Using insight from his own experience as an expert on retail payments systems, Hood advised those in attendance to look at payments holistically, not piece-by-piece.

• Frank Andryauskas, vice president of retail industry solutions at Microstrategy, covered the challenges of collecting, using and storing customer data. Andryauskas also offered advice for companies on how to leverage data for their business operations. Using the ARTS Data Warehouse model as his basis, Andryauskas said retailers can benefit from what the model offers, noting that companies must “define strategies that increase brand relevance, loyalty and profitability of consumer powered social and mobile platforms.”

The year ahead for ARTS will be a busy one. In addition to managing the rollout of the Payments Integration white paper, ARTS will unveil Version 3 of its Data Warehouse model this spring. The new model will revolutionize how companies can store and quantify information about their customers, and is just one of many examples of how ARTS is at the forefront of retail technology and innovation.

With 500 exhibitors spread across 162,000 square feet within two expansive halls, the EXPO lives up to that capital “BIG” in its name. More than 27,000 attendees have come in and out of the EXPO this year to browse the booths, network in the aisles and consult with experts about solutions to business challenges. From IT directors looking to leverage ARTS standards and integrate systems, to marketing executives in need of actionable customer insights, the EXPO is where ideas are exchanged, solutions are worked out, introductions are made and partnerships begin to take shape. Check out the photos below to see some of the energy on the EXPO floor.

One of MCX’s top goals is to provide a superior customer experience. Checking out using MCX’s app shouldn’t be a stressful experience for consumers and it ought to enhance their experiences in stores. It also allows customers to use the same mobile application at every one of MCX’s partner retailers. So a customer will be able to download the app and use it to pay whether they’re shopping at 7-Eleven, Sears or Hobby Lobby, instead of having to download a different mobile commerce app from each retailer. Picture Wal-Mart on Black Friday, said Wal-Mart’s John Drechny. Think how easy it would be if everyone who wanted to pay on a mobile platform was able to use the same app, instead of fumbling between different apps, set up for different retailers or phones or payment platforms. MCX’s app aims to offer a nimbleness that would make that Black Friday experience at Wal-Mart go seamlessly.

Another one of the company’s goals is robust security. That means using barcode technology, cloud services and account tokenization that secures customers’ mobile transactions, said Wal-Mart’s Drechny. It also means choosing accessible technology. MCX’s mobile application will be available for use on almost every type of smartphone, and, because customers will be able to use the app at so many types of retailers, there won’t be the need for customers to have a smartphone with a certain type of chip or update. This means that you are not excluding any customers based on the type of phone that they have. This single-solution approach aims to improve both security and customer experience, and goes hand in hand with MCX’s goal of preserving and enhancing customer relationships.

One of the most fascinating parts about this exchange is that it is equitable for all stakeholders. All of the retailers involved, whether big or small and regardless of average ticket price, have equal say in the development of the payment platform. As Dunkin Brands’ Kate Jaspon pointed out, many of Dunkin’s locations are owned by franchisees and the average ticket price is relatively small compared to, say, Lowe’s, but that doesn’t diminish the company’s voice in the highly collaborative development process. MCX isn’t about getting a good deal for the big guy. Every retailer involved gets a say, though the process of collaboration may be lengthy. “We, as merchants, are very much aligned,” said Jaspon.

One of MCX’s other goals is to limit the stakeholder burden by reducing complexity and minimizing costs associated with mobile transactions. It’s tough in retail to look ahead and forecast the next big thing, and it’s even more difficult to know what’s coming but not know how to embrace it or react to it. Mobile payment platforms quickly have become a focus along the retail landscape and everyone’s looking for a strategy. MCX offers retailers an unprecedented opportunity to work together to develop what could become a type of standard in the mobile commerce world. As a bonus, because it was created for retailers by retailers, it helps meet every customers’ needs.

If Dunkin customers can make their morning cup of coffee a ritual, how long might it be until customers at any retailer make MCX mobile payments part of their ritual, too?

But even in an era of lightning fast change in tastes and technology, this morning’s presenters essentially made the argument following a famous line from a song in Casablanca: “The fundamental things apply as time goes by.” The talk centered on how even with all this change, the fundamentals of excellence in retail matter more than ever. Namely, a relevant, desirable product delivered at an attractive price with the highest level of customer service. The customer experience is paramount wherever you are.

The burgeoning middle class in countries across South America, and Brazil in particular, represents the chance to capture millions of new customers and billions of dollars in new revenue, for both domestic and global market retailers. Many of these retailers are trying to retain customers who have seen their incomes quadruple in the past five years and have become more sophisticated shoppers. Veteran BIG Show speaker and renowned consultant on the Brazilian retail market, Marcos Gouvêa de Souza (GS&MD), focused on the differences between the mature retail markets (of the United States and Western Europe) and emerging retail markets of South America. Gouvea de Souza pointed out the disparity between economic growth rates between developing and mature economies and the even bigger disparity between retail growth rates between the two as well. Weighted for population age, he says, Brazil’s retail sector grew at 8.1% versus 2.1% in mature markets. The opportunities for Brazilian retailers, global brands and global retailers are immense.

Additionally, when global brands and then global retailers move into emerging markets, they help develop the market at a faster pace. They change the whole operation as well by bringing in new concepts, new price structures, and new ways of marketing and advertising.

The development of emerging retail markets like Brazil is expected to accelerate as mobile use increases as well. For e-commerce, only about 33% of emerging market customers use the Internet as compared to 77.5% in mature markets. Compare that to mobile usage—with 88.3% connected in emerging markets versus 113% in mature markets—and you can see that retailers have to get to a more omnichannel world in a shorter amount of time and with more focus on what the customer wants to be successful. Emerging retail markets are getting closer to mature retail markets, and it is mobile that is helping them close this gap by helping them develop faster and in a different way.

In a keynote address at this year’s Users’ Conference, his presentation was as much nostalgic as it was informative. “In the beginning, the stores were ‘dark’,” he said. “Mainframes ruled the earth, and POS technology was the primary connection between stores and corporate offices. ARTS set out to change all of that.” And so the impetus of ARTS emerged and the mission forged – to level the playing field through open standards – by liberating POS.

Mader recounted the list of early members and ARTS accomplishments that allowed them to lead this innovative group. IBM, Microsoft, Marks and Spencer and J.C. Penney were on the short list of first members in the 1990s who helped contribute to the cause. ARTS’ first Data and UnifiedPOS models were a result of these partnerships with retailers and solution providers. These relationships spurred new connections in Japan and Europe – and ARTS continues to expand their industry presence internationally today. Shortly after ARTS joined the NRF family in 2000, the first ARTS XML schema was released. The result was a more relaxed application to application process, reducing integration costs for the retail community by 20 percent or more, he added.

But in reminding the audience of ARTS’ history, Mader challenged members to continue to push the organization forward. The creation of ARTS whitepapers and a standardized RFP process in recent years has helped reinforce ARTS as a leader in the field. But the future of mobile retailing presents a bright opportunity for success, he said. “Our work on mobile has put a foundation of standards in place. The future is mobile and social, and we should all be asking ourselves how ARTS can keep finding opportunities to assist.” The keys to success, he said, starts with strengthening the partnerships within ARTS, and continued collaboration with NRF’s communities such as RAMA, Loss Prevention, the CIO Council and Shop.org.

The first big step toward this renewed collaboration among the NRF communities has been the launch of NRF’s Integrated Mobile Initiative – an initiative that takes a holistic look at how the mobile movement is making (and will continue to make) a huge impact on both retailing and shoppers every single day. This collaboration is the first of its kind to comprehensively look at mobile through the eyes of every type of retail employee or partner – from the information technology gurus (like the ARTS members in the room) to the marketers and even the logistics specialists. No doubt, mobile impacts retail companies in a big way and now is the time to take the macro approach.

ARTS has helped lay the foundation for retailers pursuing new technologies, such as mobile integration, for two decades – and has also helped those companies save money while doing it. As we look to the future of retailing, even in the next five years, there’s no doubt that the same thought-leadership, product development and cost-savings will continue and the collaborative, macro view of retail will take us even further.

Overcoming these mobile operational hurdles falls right in Jerry Rightmer‘s comfort zone. A leader in developing store and enterprise solutions, Rightmer now serves as the President and CTO of Starmount. Ahead of his keynote address on best practices in mobile implementation at the 2012 ARTS Users’ Conference, Rightmer shared his thoughts on the future of retail technology, the companies at the forefront of offering in-store mobile POS or apps, and why the ARTS community is the industry’s go-to source for retail technology standards.

What does the future of retail technology look like in the next five years?

Personal and engaging! Mobile technology in the hands of consumers and sales associates will dramatically change the in-store shopping experience. The retail industry is still in the early days of mobile deployments and mobile selling. I foresee vendors shifting their investments to support mobility, and I believe the rate of innovation and adoption will continue at an unprecedented speed. Providing options to retailers to differentiate themselves based on customer service is a driving force in retail technology.

Jerry Rightmer, President and CTO, Starmount

For some retailers, being at the forefront of fashion also means that it makes sense for them to be at the forefront of technology. Urban Outfitters has been a leader in this area. They’ve not only deployed in-store mobile technology chainwide so associates can process in-person and online transactions throughout the store, but they’ve also taken their customer engagement model into consideration and built additional custom apps to facilitate a better overall customer (and associate) experience. The vision they have for their stores is really exciting.

Other retailers we’ve worked with are using in-store mobile technology to provide their associates with a wealth of robust product information and capabilities, so they can not only process transactions, but also sell services, access loyalty data, provide ratings and reviews on products, pick up merchandise ordered online in the store, and return items — without ever leaving the customer’s side.

In-store technology is only one piece of the puzzle. What is your biggest piece of advice for IT executives developing a customer-centric mobile strategy?

Technology is a great enabler, and the fascinating aspect of mobile technology is that it’s bringing together departments that have not traditionally worked closely on projects. My biggest piece of advice would be for IT execs to collaborate with lines of business to understand how the brand envisions customer engagement evolving with this technology. In-store mobile technology will challenge and enhance every business process a retailer uses to operate their stores and engage with their customers.

One big draw of working within the ARTS community would be leveraging their popular whitepapers, standards and schemas. Talk a bit about what these products have helped you or your technology teams accomplish.

Starmount has brought a product line to market in less than half the time using ARTS’ standards and other resources. We have the confidence and experience to show that integrating our products into a retail enterprise is faster and easier due to our use of ARTS’ standards.

You’ve had an exciting career in the retail technology so far. What would you say has been your biggest lesson learned through your 20 years of experience?

The people in this industry have a wealth of knowledge, skills and experience that have helped me both personally and professionally. One of the great benefits of ARTS is the opportunity to interact with retailers and vendors in a non-commercial environment to share ideas and learn from each other.

What are you looking forward to most at this year’s ARTS Users’ Conference?

I’m looking forward to hearing from industry leaders on how they are putting new technologies like cloud computing, big data solutions, and in-store mobile technology to use in their companies. There is always someone pushing the envelope and willing to share their experience with the ARTS community.

This was the background given in Monday morning’s opening keynote at the ARTS Users’ Conference in Dallas. Laudato explained that when new leadership took the helm in 2007, a first step was removing the company’s e-commerce site all together in order to ensure a more streamlined commerce approach across all channels. While this was an optimal time for many retailers to enter the e-commerce scene, Pier 1 used this as an opportunity to take a step back and find a cloud-based solution model to meet their business needs.

“We turned e-commerce off to focus on core business fundamentals,” Laudato emphasized.

Over the next four years, the Pier 1 IT team worked with ARTS to tailor an RFP to find the right solutions for their business. Using ARTS research and best practices as a benchmark, three big operational themes emerged. Although somewhat different, the foundation for each was the same: start with investing in stores and technology first.

Omnichannel opportunities. Leveraging their already strong bricks-and-mortar distribution network and cash-in-store model, Pier 1 2 You was the first revamped site to emerge in June 2011. Shoppers could now view products online and pick-up in-store, a feature that did not exist back in 2007. And since Laudato and his team stuck with the solution providers already working with ARTS standards, both sides started on the same page. The complexity of uniting more than 200 team members across three countries was simpler because all of the vendors were working from one set of ARTS guidelines.

E-commerce evolution. The new-look Pier1.com launched on July 31, 2012, and has, “been multichannel from day one,” Laudato said. Not looking to reinvent the wheel, many of the same principles used in Pier 1 2 You have been applied to their online sales division. “If you want to appear seamless to the customer, you’ve got to operate seamlessly on the back-end,” he added.

New POS technology. A little further down the pipeline and before implementation across their 1,000 nationwide stores, Laudato alluded to how the company’s point-of-sale technology will be receiving an upgrade. A pilot program will be launched at select stores later this month which will include removing their longtime label credit card system and replacing this with a card loyalty model. This will go a long way in helping to streamline Pier 1′s omnichannel operations and order management strategy, all of which should be fully-functioning across all stores by July 2013, Laudato said. Another big component is applying a cloud-based model to take a stronger hold on loss prevention.

In closing, Laudato said the key to dealing with complexity that comes with retail technology is to take a “mutually suspicious, loosely coupled” approach. Tying this idea back in to the industry, he said this was essential in improving his company’s flexibility at times and making sure, “you’re sending clean, healthy data from your system” to keep delivering a memorable customer experience.

Ahead of his appearance at the NRF Loss Prevention Executive Summit in Chicago later this month, Sileo shares how retailers can protect themselves while moving ahead with mobile, how to anticipate the human element when it comes to security risks, and his top advice for keeping data secure.

When planning mobile strategies, what can retailers do to ensure that data security remains a top priority?

Retailers need to understand that the costs of recovering from any data breach are exponentially higher than those of preventing the problem in the first place. Unfortunately, this is a lesson that far too many companies learn only after they have a security breach or loss event. Technology isn’t the only component of implementing a mobile strategy. There are just as many physical and human concerns as there are digital considerations. Retailers have to build a culture of privacy and security to support the strategy. Responsibility, in the final analysis, lies in the human decision to roll out the network before properly vetting the robustness of security, not in a lack of technological solutions to increase security.

As social media channels become more important for interacting with customers and employees, what can retailers do to protect themselves and consumers?

The first step is for retailers to educate their customers and employees as individuals, not as workers. Teach them how to protect their Facebook account for their own benefit and it becomes an easy extension to get them to protect the organizations assets online. The critical piece here is to appeal to people on an emotional basis, not from an intellectual perspective because most change is generated as a result of feeling, not as a result of thinking. A better way is to connect the change to an emotional appeal that secures buy-in from all stakeholders involved by making them FEEL the implications.

You’ve said that retailers need to pay attention to “the human element.” Describe what you mean by that and why it’s important for the retail LP profession.

At the heart of every security breach is a human decision. Most people have never been trained to detect their own biases, to recognize when they are being manipulated and to make decisions based on a combination of mind and instinct (or heart). Loss prevention originates with human decisions, so it is incredibly important that the people inside of your organization have the best tools possible for making decisions with low loss thresholds.

How has your personal experience with identity theft shaped your professional career?

Having been a two-time victim of data theft quite literally redefined my professional identity. After losing so much money, time and my business to identity theft and data breach, I was forced to start over completely. I wouldn’t want to go through the process again, but it has afforded me the opportunity to speak around the world on important topics like online privacy, social media exposure, social engineering, fraud prevention and mobile security, and helping organizations avoid what I experienced is incredibly fulfilling.

What’s your top piece of advice for retailers who are working daily to keep their data secure?

The key to great security isn’t a series of silo-protected functions, it’s the strength and elasticity of the glue that holds all of them together. For example, you may have technologically secured your tablet-based POS checkout with all the bells and whistles, but have you accounted for the thief who pulls on a company shirt and checks out a customer on what looks like company issued equipment? They have internal IT experts, compliance officials, physical security services, surveillance professionals, etc., but they may have not explored the micro-fissures between each of these areas that data thieves exploit. Thieves always follow the path of least resistance, and many of those are missed at a departmental level as it’s not really that person’s responsibility to govern how the two functions interface. That is where an external assessment, such as a Holistic Loss Prevention Audit, is invaluable.

Eric Koger, CEO and Co-Founder of ModCloth

Koger went on to explain how the “five C’s” factor into the vintage fashion retailer’s community-centric retailing concept:

• Curation: Curation is essential get the process started. The community relies on the taste and style of its team to select and suggest fashion choices.
• Content: There are up to 50 new products a day on the ModCloth website, and that fresh content is essential to making browsing the ModCloth site a daily habit. Koger shared that one-third of all visitors to the site check the site every day, while 10% of traffic is visiting the site eight times a day or more. Photos of staff members modeling clothing, videos, user-generated photos and a popular fashion blog are all important, sharable and long-lasting tools.
• Conversation. Every touch point with a customer is viewed as an ongoing conversation with that customer, so social media plays an important role in driving those conversations.  A social media team engages with customers on various sites outside of ModCloth as well.
• Collaboration. This is a key part of the Be the Buyer program that allows customers to vote on which designs are created and sold by ModCloth, and the company launched a new program in which design ideas are submitted, curated by the ModCloth team, and voted on.
• Culture. ModCloth has 300 employees, a lot of whom are customers themselves. Team members actively showing their support by posting modeling photos on the website is a feature that customers love, and that fun-loving culture helps set the tone for the brand and the entire community.

But while these five C’s of community are more on the style side, it’s data that really drives the company. ModCloth had to figure out a scoring system to calculate all those votes, comments and feedback from the community, and they’ve now found the right formula to select winners. Koger added that the Be the Buyer products sell two-and-a-half times better than other products on the site.

Technology that helps designers analyze feedback has also come in handy. Koger shared an example of using word cloud applications to find trends in hundreds of comments for a particularly unpopular dress. As it turned out, most customers hated all the ruffles, so ModCloth simply removed the ruffle from the picture of dress, put it back up, and voila! Instant hit.

The concept of data becoming as important or more important than gut instinct is one that Koger says will shape the future of fashion. At ModCloth, data helps the customer to always come out on top.