Advanced Technologies Management for Retailing: Frameworks and Cases

Advanced Technologies Management for Retailing: Frameworks and Cases brings together research, insights, and practices of strategic management applications that optimize both the opportunities and challenges of emerging and flourishing technologies in retailing. This volume contains original research that contributes to our understanding of applications of advanced technologies, their impact on the design and development of innovative points of sale, and of consumer behavioural intentions towards these technologies. In particular, Section 1, “Advances in Technologies Management for Retailing,” deepens our knowledge of the current developments for improving retailing and consumer in-store experiences. A selection of 6 chapters has been chosen to illustrate the changes in the point-of sale caused by innovative technologies capable of totally modifying store layout, payment modalities, and information transfer from and to consumers. The first chapter provides a detailed review of the current technologies available at the point of sale, by focusing barcode scanning, electronic shelf tags, shelf-checkouts, RFID tags, and fingerprint authentication; subsequent chapters highlight the evolution of the store from the traditional point-of-sale to an innovative point-of-consumer. Chapters 3 and 4 investigate the introduction of a specific technology in the store, respectively the Retail Digital Signage, and an advanced Virtual Shopping Assistant; Chapter 5 “Information and Communication Technologies in Marketing Channels: Product Considerations” analyzes the new technologies introduced in the different distribution channels more generally, with emphasis on consumer evaluation of these technologies. The last chapter of this section focuses on the Enterprise Architecture for retailing, in order to underline its benefits for innovating, improving, enriching, and increasing the interaction between business and technology.