Technology Recommendation 1

Technology Recommendation 1

Its no secret that internet has become part of everyday lives for majority of the people around the world. From making call to browsing internet, and now people can even order food and taxi from the comfort of their phones. People are now less reluctant to use their smart phones to make the payments for the product and services they have recently ordered. There has been a substantial growth in online transactions, as many Australians use online banking to pay bills, payments for food and so on (Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2011).

Similarly, people are using their smart phone to tap and pay for the products they buy through various supermarkets like Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. The payments can only be made once you have scanned all the products yourself and have placed them in the bag. This takes up a bit of a time, however in these technological advancement era where things have changed dramatically, technology can be used by stores like 7-Eleven in order to further enhance its customer service and consumer engagement. 

To the first technology recommendation for 7-Eleven is to have QR codes and RFID technology in place for all its products that are available in stores. RFID is basically a wireless automatic identification data capture (AIDC) technology that is mainly used for tracking and identification of various items ().

So what’s exactly going to happy is, the customer will enter any 7-Eleven store, any time of the day by scanning his QR code from his smart device placed at the entrance. Customer can pick any product and as many products that he may wants to and simply leave the store without having to pay for any of those items or having any interaction with store manager. Since all the products will have RFID tags on them, they will automatically be scanned by the scanners that are placed on the entrance and exit doors. As for the payments, the payments will automatically be debited from clients account after tracking the products that were purchased with the help of cloud-based payment infrastructure and cameras. 

One of the main benefit that 7-Eleven like to get with the implementation of this technology is that RFID and QR codes will definitely help the business to capture more data and at the same time it will also help in reducing costs for the business by staff reduction in the stores. Cost saving is one benefit where as customer satisfaction in terms of their experience in store would be another. As identified earlier in this report that majority of the customers visiting 7-Eleven stores are usually in rush, so having this type of service will definitely come handy for the business. 

Another advantage that RFID has to offer, if implemented by 7-Eleven is that by tagging all the items, the retailer would know how many products are on shelf and how many are in warehouse with just scanning one code and at the same time the, 7-Eleven can further reduce its cost by replacing the inventory and retagging staff members with RFID technology (Markman. J, 2020).

So in simple terms, RFID integration into retail stores has many benefits, it not only helps in improving the product visibility but it also offer operating efficiencies in the supply chain area. 

It is due to the RFID technology that companies can decrease the stock-out rate, trim down the warehousing costs, at the same time can also cut theft and damage, lower down shrinkage loss and eliminate stock counting errors. More accuracy of the products on shelf and in warehouse can also be maintained, as it will take less time to track down all the inventories.