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Anne MazingaThe top five headlines making waves in the world of omnichannel retailing that comes your way every Wednesday afternoon.
Anne MazingaI'm one of your co hosts for today's interview, Anne Mazinga.
Chris WaltonAnd I'm Chris Walton.
Anne MazingaAnd Chris, I'm really excited about this podcast today because you and I have been talking about RFID and its many benefits for years.
Anne MazingaFor years, at least.
Chris WaltonYeah.
Chris WaltonAlmost a decade, I think, Ann, quite honestly, I believe.
Anne MazingaI believe almost a decade.
Anne MazingaAnd then we just went to the H and M store in soho, and that was a new experience for us because it's really showing us, like, how rfid, when utilized correctly for things like inventory management, merchandising, new fitting room experiences, and so much more, can really help improve a store.
Anne MazingaIt's kind of seeing it come to life for the first time.
Chris Walton100%.
Chris WaltonYeah, that store in New York was pretty, pretty impressive.
Anne MazingaYes.
Anne MazingaWell, we got so many comments about that video that we.
Anne MazingaWe decided that it was time to bring in an expert.
Anne MazingaChris and I have been.
Anne MazingaHave been following it, but we're not the experts when it comes to rfid.
Anne MazingaSo we have somebody here who may be new to our amitalk Retail audience.
Anne MazingaSo we're going to take a minute to introduce him, but also somebody that really has a lot of expertise and can sit down with us and talk about how RFID is really come to coming to life in today's stores.
Anne MazingaAnd so it's with great pleasure that I introduce today's guest, Troy Cywick, the general manager and partner at Gray Orange, to help us get to the bottom of some of these questions for our Amitak retail audience.
Anne MazingaTroy, welcome.
Troy CywickThank you.
Troy CywickHi, Ann.
Troy CywickHi, Chris.
Troy CywickAwesome to be here.
Anne MazingaYeah, we're excited to have you.
Anne MazingaTroy, this is your first time you're on the Omnitalk Retail podcast.
Anne MazingaDid you do any sort of special prep for this?
Anne MazingaLike, did you need to go on a retreat of some kind or something to get ready.
Troy CywickOh, wow.
Troy CywickWhat is set up?
Troy CywickYes, I did a Zen yoga, clean eating, healthy living, Sedona triple with my wife.
Troy CywickSo I'm all Zen.
Troy CywickYou'll get the, you'll get the super chill inward reflecting.
Troy CywickTroy, for this talk.
Anne MazingaMy God, that's so awesome.
Anne MazingaYou, you win for being most prepared for an Omnitak podcast.
Anne MazingaI'm so thrilled, so excited to have you.
Chris WaltonSo, yeah, Troy, I can feel it in your voice.
Chris WaltonLike you seem very relaxed, very like in the mood for this podcast, this conversation.
Chris WaltonI wish I could take some of your Zen, Zen like demeanor too.
Chris WaltonBut before we get started, I want to, for our audience, give us a sense, give them a sense of who you are, what's your background and what qualifies you as an expert in rfid.
Troy CywickSure, sure.
Troy CywickAnd by the way, talk to me on Thursday and the Zen will all be gone because we're on retail.
Troy CywickWe know how it goes.
Chris WaltonYes, we do.
Troy CywickYeah.
Troy CywickSo I'm at Gray Orange now, but pre Gray Orange, my history is always retail.
Troy CywickI think I was born retail.
Troy CywickSo my first job out of college was Ulta, which back then.
Chris WaltonOh wow.
Troy CywickUlta 3.
Troy CywickYeah, I know.
Troy CywickDon't ask me to say when.
Troy CywickAnd then I traveled to like small software companies, bigger software companies, servicing retail, eventually smarter commerce and IBM.
Troy CywickMy claim to fame was omnichannel before it was Omni, which is kind of cool for this, this talk.
Troy CywickIt was multi channel back then.
Chris WaltonRight.
Troy CywickPart of the gig.
Chris WaltonSo I remember those days.
Troy CywickYeah, I was in the middle of a lot of those.
Troy CywickFirst big retail ship from store, pickup from store.
Troy CywickThe best buys stapled, two day delivery was like a cool thing back then.
Troy CywickBefore Amazon.
Troy CywickYeah, a lot of those type of omnichannel, like Lowe's, you know, the ones that really leaned in back then.
Troy CywickAnd then kind of later in my career it was more big tech retail consulting.
Troy CywickSo all the sort of boring but, you know, important like ERP ServiceNow, HR transformations, all that big consulting stuff is what I was doing before I came here to Gray Orange.
Chris WaltonOh my God.
Chris WaltonYou were in ERP implementations and you still want to be in retail.
Chris WaltonThat's.
Chris WaltonThat's pretty impressive, my friend.
Chris WaltonWow.
Troy CywickWell, I'm not there anymore, so that might.
Chris WaltonYou got out of here.
Anne MazingaHe's moved to greener pastures.
Anne MazingaYes, that's right.
Troy CywickThat's awesome.
Chris WaltonAll right, well, let's talk about Gray Orange.
Chris WaltonSo start by.
Chris WaltonLet's start with, give a little background on what Gray Orange Is, and, and then you know, also what drew you to the company because your background is pretty steeped in retail at a lot of different angles.
Troy CywickYeah.
Troy CywickSo Gray Orange is company of about 700 people.
Troy CywickIt's 10 plus years old, although it feels like a startup based on the pace of change and everything we have going on.
Troy CywickSo supply chain automation for the biggest retailers.
Troy CywickSo if you think of the next day, same day delivery concepts, those are all done with automation.
Troy CywickLots of really complex software, robotics.
Troy CywickAnd that is what the core of what Gray Orange has been up till about two years ago.
Troy CywickAnd that's still a huge piece of our business now for some of the biggest retailers.
Troy CywickAnd I would say two years back we, we took what the core of what that retail supply chain system looks like and brought it to some retailers and said, what if we had this level of intelligence and AI in the store, how could we innovate?
Troy CywickAnd that's how we, we came to develop G Store in conjunction with some key retailers.
Chris WaltonSo Troy, talk a little bit more about that.
Chris WaltonLike what is, what is.
Chris WaltonI mean, people throw around the term supply chain automation all the time and, and you know, it's interesting to hear you say that, the layer of AI into it too, because we had Microsoft's Margaret sign in with us at Shop Talk fall and she said that supply chain was particularly one of the top three areas she's seeing retailers invest in AI.
Chris WaltonSo, you know, how do those two things fit together?
Chris WaltonGive us some more detail on that.
Troy CywickWell, so, you know, my attraction to come here in the first place a couple years ago was we, you know, joked about ERPs and like it was kind of like you needed to convince people that those projects were cool.
Troy CywickI couldn't talk about them at the, you know, at the poker parties or at the bar or anything like that.
Troy CywickLike, there's just nothing.
Troy CywickI did a financial transformation at, you know, XYZ retailer.
Troy CywickBut a friend of mine actually called me, talked about Gray Orange, talked about the robots and the AI and I was kind of like skeptical, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I went and saw it.
Troy CywickI actually saw it.
Troy CywickWhat sold me on Gray Orange was to actually go to a retailer's fulfillment center and just see the magic happen.
Troy CywickHundreds of robots operating with humans, didn't replace all the humans, but.
Chris WaltonRight.
Troy CywickYou know, just the level of automation was beyond anything I had imagined.
Troy CywickAnd then to put myself mentally into, I could do this and I could go talk at the poker parties and say I just deployed 600 robots in Nashville at this place.
Troy CywickOr, you know, I We have smart mirrors deployed at this, this retail.
Troy CywickIt just felt more real and more cool and more interesting and kind of like a, A possibility to get some energy back in the sales and be excited about each project that I do.
Troy CywickSo in the, you know, everybody AI and everything.
Troy CywickAI in the drinking fountain.
Troy CywickRight?
Troy CywickEverybody says AI, but it really is AI if you think about products start moving differently in retail trends, social media, and to allow algorithms to catch that, pick up on that and react, whether it's in a fulfillment center or in a retail store location is.
Troy CywickIt's real.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickThey come together and they, it's.
Troy CywickIt's.
Troy CywickIt's kind of cool to watch, right?
Chris WaltonYeah.
Chris WaltonAnd I got to go, I got to go with you on that one because, like, yeah, which, which.
Chris WaltonWhich line would I want to use in a bar more often and robot or ERP implementation?
Chris WaltonI don't think it's a very close battle on that one.
Chris WaltonAnd do you agree?
Anne MazingaI don't know.
Anne MazingaI just love that Troy is like, it's really about what I'm going to tell my friends.
Anne MazingaIt's not about what I'm actually doing.
Anne MazingaEven though both things are incredibly incredib.
Anne MazingaIt sounds cooler to talk about.
Anne MazingaWe get it.
Anne MazingaYou're my, you're our kind of person, Troy.
Anne MazingaWell, Troy, I want to, I want to like, narrow in on one particular area too that is important when you're working on faster supply chain and logistics, and that's rfid, especially because when I was just at Shop Talk Europe, I interviewed Gustav Zetterstrom, who's the SVP of Global innovation and Emerging technology at H and M.
Anne MazingaAnd when I asked him specifically, I was like, okay, I want to know.
Anne MazingaYou're deploying all these cool stores, but, like, what is the one innovation investment that you think has been most impactful to, you know, the success of your stores?
Anne MazingaAnd he said rfid, because of the things that you just talked about, it gives you better inventory, visibility, better ideas of where your products are in the fitting rooms, in the back of room, on their way to the store, or on the floor somewhere?
Anne MazingaAnd I, you know, you're working with several retailers you mentioned to put G store in.
Anne MazingaIn motion.
Anne MazingaDo you think that most of them would agree that RFID is really the, you know, would they agree with Gustav's sentiment that that's really what's supercharging their retail operations right now?
Troy CywickYeah, the.
Troy CywickWell, it's in pockets, right?
Troy CywickSo RFID, much more prevalent, bigger ROIs in fashion, luxury.
Troy CywickI mean, RFID is all over the Place as you guys started this convers, it's in the warehouse, it's in loss prevention systems.
Troy CywickBut when you're talking about the visionary stuff that Gustav is doing, and he's great at talking about it by the way, he tells the story like no one else.
Troy CywickYou're talking about where the RFID tags make sense to be placed.
Troy CywickSo fashion shoes, things where there's decent enough margins to pay for all the technology and you can get that real time inventory availability.
Troy CywickSo what Gustav and H and M are doing is overhead rfid.
Troy CywickNext gen rfid.
Troy CywickSo what's been around for a long time is handheld RFID where you can walk around and I can get a sense of what's there if I'm in the vicinity.
Troy CywickBut the step up, the game changing stuff that the trend setting retailers are doing is overhead rfid.
Troy CywickI know where everything is on an XY coordinate in the store and that's what they're doing.
Troy CywickAnd then if you take an application like ours, G Store, I think we're still the only one that has hundreds of stores deployed in production with overhead rfid.
Troy CywickAnd you can link that to all the tech.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickSo the possibilities are endless when it comes to, you know, smart mirrors, sensing, hooking it up with video capture, you know, the existing cameras that are in the store to create, create different insights and signals for the store managers or the corporate office or the merchandising team.
Troy CywickSo what are they.
Anne MazingaYeah, I was gonna, I was gonna say, Troy, like go even deeper into like what they're able to do that they weren't able to do before.
Anne MazingaLike what kind of visibility is this giving them about, like how people are interacting, you know, in a physical environment in a way that previously we could only tell from what they were, you know, like we'd only be able to get that level of detail, what they're taking into a fitting room, for example.
Anne MazingaWe'd only be able to do that if they, if we were watching that activity online, we wouldn't be able to do that in a physical environment.
Anne MazingaBut what, what does this unlock for them?
Troy CywickSo if you think about my omnichannel days, way back when, it was kind of a thing to figure out, do you have inventory or not?
Troy CywickLike binary in the store?
Troy CywickSo I'm on the website, I'm on the app.
Troy CywickDoes the store have inventory, yes or no?
Troy CywickAnd then we gravitated towards, we have 10 of these, but the retailer probably had 15.
Troy CywickThey just are being very careful, right, with safety stock.
Troy CywickAnd they don't want somebody to be disappointed.
Troy CywickAnd so now this technology, when combined with the software and the overhead readers, you know exactly how much inventory you have.
Troy Cywick98%.
Troy CywickSo think of a constant rolling cycle count.
Troy CywickWith the RFID of two years ago, you still had to go around cycle counting and making sure you updated all your accounts.
Troy CywickThis is just done.
Troy CywickIt's done now, of course.
Anne MazingaWow.
Troy CywickWe all have trust issues.
Troy CywickSo they'll go audit and just make sure everything's working.
Troy CywickYou know, that's just always going to be the case, right?
Anne MazingaSure, sure.
Troy CywickBut because they know where everything's at and how much they have, you now create a situation that we were aware of and we put in our software roadmap.
Troy CywickBut I don't think anyone knew how important it would become is replenishment from back of the store to the front of the store, or from one area to another area of the store.
Troy CywickSo now you can have a situation where your top selling item in that soho store, for example, might be a jacket on a mannequin with four of them laying there on the display in the front.
Troy CywickAnd they run out.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickSo two years ago they're just out and maybe the store manager notices it after an hour or two.
Troy CywickNow we know before they run out or danger, danger if they, if they've already run out, go bring that to the store.
Troy CywickIt's a priority task in the software to bring those items up to the front.
Troy CywickAnd you know, our.
Troy CywickWe have customers that have told us, you know, this is changing the conversion rate in the stores that operate this technology.
Chris WaltonYeah, yeah.
Chris WaltonThe way I'd sum up what you say, Troy, is like the move from handhelds to overhead arrays.
Chris WaltonIt gives you a perpetual state of inventory in your store.
Chris WaltonRight.
Chris WaltonLike constant state of inventory versus the handhelds are done at a single point in time.
Chris WaltonAnd yeah.
Chris WaltonSo for that reason, you don't get an understanding or an alert, which is kind of the smartness of the system too.
Chris WaltonRight.
Chris WaltonYou don't get an alert when something's out of stock on the floor and sitting in your back room.
Chris WaltonAnd the other part too, Troy, if I'm not mistaken, it also helps you locate the product in the back room too, because of the overhead array.
Chris WaltonLike you can get a.
Chris WaltonYou could get a good sense of where those products are.
Chris WaltonWhich in an apparel operation is not always the easiest thing to, to figure out if you've worked those back rooms.
Chris WaltonIs that also right?
Troy CywickExactly.
Troy CywickAnd so if you think about it, in our application G store, we load the planograms, right.
Troy CywickSo they're Digitally loaded.
Troy CywickSo you have a 3D map.
Chris WaltonWow.
Troy CywickOr back room, front room, omnichannel area, if you have one of those.
Troy CywickAnd so you have the location with a visual.
Troy CywickSo it really makes the store associate experience way better because they just don't have to do any guesswork.
Troy CywickThey get within three feet, five feet, you know, depending on the store of exactly where the product is and they can kind of see where it looks like in that area.
Troy CywickSo, so that's available.
Troy CywickAnd then, you know, Ann, you mentioned the, the back room or the changing room.
Troy CywickThey, you know, so now you can be in the changing room, you can have the medium, you can ask the mirror, can you find me some shoes to match this?
Troy CywickAnd can I get a small instead of a medium?
Troy CywickAnd the associate can bring that to you without any verbal or any other conversation.
Troy CywickJust because the availability of where that, you know, the connection of the tech and then knowing where the inventory is makes that all possible.
Chris WaltonRight.
Chris WaltonOr not having to open the door half dressed and find an associate which.
Chris WaltonWho may or may not be there either.
Chris WaltonRight?
Chris WaltonYes.
Chris WaltonRight.
Troy CywickYeah.
Chris WaltonKeep.
Chris WaltonAll right, you said the phrase a couple of times.
Chris WaltonSo G Store.
Chris WaltonSo let's talk about that specifically.
Chris WaltonWhat is G Store in its definition and, and how, how do you envision it helping retailers?
Chris WaltonOr how does it provide a foundation for retailers for the innovation work that they want to do in this regard now, but also in the future?
Troy CywickYeah.
Troy CywickSo, Chris, it's, it's not like what I described in my earlier career where people are doing these massive transformations, putting a feather in their cap, saying, I did $100 million SAP thing.
Troy CywickEverything that we're seeing right now is use case and project driven.
Troy CywickSo they want to solve for some problem they're having.
Troy CywickIt could be cost based or it could be top line based.
Troy CywickSo I want to go from, you know, my RFID solution that's got 80 to 90% inventory accuracy to 98% accurate.
Troy CywickSo, so we see these use cases and the entry point for us more often than not is RFID overhead.
Troy CywickRFID and some kind of overhead.
Troy CywickYeah.
Troy CywickNow after that, G Store is really an operational platform, you know, which isn't really what people are asking for in the marketplace right now.
Troy CywickNobody's going, hey, can I get a new operating system for my store?
Troy CywickAnd, and the reason is because they often have like five or six apps there.
Troy CywickSo that's not a natural thing to ask for.
Troy CywickThey might have Manhattan, SAP, IBM, Oracle, whoever, you know, whoever those providers might Blue yonder, those applications are in the store.
Troy CywickSo they don't naturally say, can I just, you know, replace all those with something?
Troy CywickBut we have the ability to do tasks, anything related to inventory, receiving, shipping, you know, client telling, all that kind of stuff is available.
Troy CywickSo our strategy really is not to oversell it, not to try and kick other people out, other systems out.
Troy CywickWe just say here we'll provide you this use case and then that team can see the capabilities of G Store and realize it's a SaaS based platform that can help them operate many things in the store.
Troy CywickBut RFID tends to be the first one they want to do.
Anne MazingaYeah, that makes sense.
Anne MazingaUm, I, what doesn't make sense to me though is why this is becoming something that retailers are just starting to invest in now.
Anne MazingaI mean you, you talked about cost being a major component, but is it because G Store is now able to do so much more?
Anne MazingaIt's able to like once you invest in this, in this SaaS model, you're, you're getting more from it.
Anne MazingaYou're able to track, you know, inventory location, you're able to understand planogram is better, you're able, like is it just that it's do, it's working harder.
Anne MazingaAnd so now retailers are making the investment or what, what's kind of keeping anybody from doing this right now?
Troy CywickI think the phase one or if we're just talking RFID right now.
Troy CywickYeah, the phase one was like a kind of a try it con.
Troy CywickWell, I don't think the people that did it would call it a proof of concept, but.
Chris WaltonRight.
Troy CywickStick your toe in the water, figure this out.
Troy CywickAnd I don't think they're seeing in many cases as big of an ROI as they would like to or expected to.
Troy CywickAnd I also don't think store adopt.
Troy CywickBut what I'm seeing is we're picking up a lot of second try, like take two in the movies.
Troy CywickWe're picking up that take two project.
Troy CywickAnd it's because the adoption of handheld alone or whatever solution they implemented, the store associates weren't loving it.
Anne MazingaThere's still that extra task in that leg.
Troy CywickExtra task, not a big roi.
Troy CywickI mean it's kind of cool.
Troy CywickThey can, they can go find things and they can do a little bit of client telling, but just the step change that's happened in both the hardware technology, the ability to read it closer and then the software, you know, just connects all those points and gives all the insights.
Troy CywickSo the reason I, you know, those like the H and M, you reference Gustav, the reason they're doing it is because it's technically capable now, but then retail is this, you know, omnichannel, and retail is what you guys do.
Troy CywickYou know, there's a wide range of the trendsetting ones that lean into technology, and then there's the ones that kind of just want to watch and see that didn't blow up.
Troy CywickOkay, I can do it now, a year later.
Troy CywickSo we'll see a lot of trailing fashion and shoe retailers.
Troy CywickWe're seeing a lot.
Troy CywickWe're piloting a lot right now.
Anne MazingaYeah.
Anne MazingaI mean, you brought up something else, Troy, that.
Anne MazingaThat I just thought of.
Anne MazingaLike, the other component of this is that because things are moving so quickly, trends are popping up on TikTok, and you as a.
Anne MazingaAs a retailer, you have to be ready to respond with that inventory as quickly as possible, get it out so that people can.
Anne MazingaCan get their hands on it and purchase it.
Anne MazingaI imagine that there's other people within a retail organization who are interested in this technology now as well, too.
Anne MazingaIs that.
Anne MazingaAm I.
Anne MazingaAm I thinking about that the right way?
Anne MazingaI mean, is it.
Anne MazingaI imagine like rfid, back in the day, when we were at Target, it was like our, you know, CIO or CTO was interested in that technology, but now it's like, okay, if I, as a marketing person, I can know that I can send people, you know, I can put this product on TikTok and people can find it in the store.
Anne MazingaLike that, to me, now gives more importance in investing in that type of technology.
Troy CywickAbsolutely.
Troy CywickI mean, I'm licking my chops because of all the groups that I've worked with in my retail career merchandising team.
Troy CywickThere's something for everybody.
Troy CywickSo merchant compliance.
Troy CywickSo imagine you have 1500 stores and you know where every piece of inventory is, and, you know, your planograms.
Troy CywickNow you can.
Troy CywickNow you can go, wait, how come the store in New Jersey doesn't have the product at the front of the store where the.
Troy CywickWhere they're supposed to have it in the planogram.
Troy CywickThis new.
Troy CywickThis new release is out.
Troy CywickOur new promotion is out.
Troy CywickWe're on tv.
Troy CywickIt's got to be there.
Troy CywickCompliance.
Troy CywickGet to that store manager and say, hey, go fix your displays.
Troy CywickYou're behind now.
Troy CywickHeat mapping.
Troy CywickAnd you got me going.
Troy CywickSo I'm, you know, keep.
Troy CywickKeep me from.
Anne MazingaNo, keep going for it.
Troy CywickYeah, but heat mapping, like so, showing all.
Troy CywickWe.
Troy CywickWe actually have this right now in pilot, showing all the regions of a world for a retailer and where they're at with compliance and backstock replenishment.
Troy CywickAnd this Store is red, they might need more help or maybe the store manager struggling.
Troy CywickAll the different things you can do for the different groups within the retail.
Troy CywickI mean, I, I could go on and on, but merchant compliance, one that comes to mind and then just thinking about real time reaction to what's happening between physical motion with consumers in a store, what, you know, what they're doing, they're going up to the mannequin, they, they see all the stuff, they're there, the traffic is there, and then they walk away and they don't take anything or they take something into the changing room, but more often than not they're leaving it in there.
Troy CywickWhy does it not fit right?
Troy CywickIs it the price point's not right?
Troy CywickWhat could be happening?
Troy CywickSo all this is stuff you really can't do now with the tech that's there a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, this will change that.
Troy CywickThis will give some really cool stuff, including the social stuff.
Troy CywickAnd I think you made me think of H and M.
Troy CywickThere's a TikTok out there where there, there's a customer working on a smart mirror going, oh my God, I'm shook.
Troy CywickI just ordered like, like she was like going crazy because of all this new technology that they're deploying.
Chris WaltonYeah, that's an interesting point, Troy.
Chris WaltonI mean, I've never thought about that.
Chris WaltonThat, you know, as omnichannel continues to advance, the use cases for the foundational technologies are hitting more parts of.
Chris WaltonBecause, yeah, the heat mapping is interesting from the merchant standpoint because I, as a former merchant, want to know that my product is out there.
Chris WaltonAnd then from the store operations perspective, the district managers, the regional managers, the store managers, they can basically have an audit of their store that it's set correctly visually at the press of a button.
Chris WaltonThey don't even have to go into the store anymore to see who on their teams are compliant with the orders that are being given to headquarters.
Chris WaltonSo, yeah, so there's a whole host of use cases here that are really interesting.
Chris WaltonAll right, so.
Chris WaltonSo if we buy into that, which, like I said at the outset, and I've been talking about this for 10 years, and we've seen the heat maps in practice and they're pretty darn cool.
Chris WaltonWhat do retailers need to think about, though, to get themselves ready to test this type of overhead technology in the store, or G store more broadly, what do they need to think about to get that right?
Troy CywickSo we really play in two spaces.
Troy CywickWe play in RFID and non rfid.
Troy CywickI think we focus a Lot of the conversation because it's really hot right now on rfid.
Troy CywickSo there's a lot of physical things that happen in an RFID project.
Troy CywickSo we always push for like a one to three store pilot.
Troy CywickWe have a big retail chain right now that said, we want 10, you know, we're going to listen to the client, but, you know, we like to start out small so we can figure out what works, what doesn't work, with the associates being core.
Troy CywickSo what we've learned and corrected is even if the retailer isn't thinking about it this way, where's the store associate now?
Troy CywickThe real one, not the one that works in corporate, the real one in the store in Los Angeles.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickWe want to.
Troy CywickWe want her in the room saying, this works.
Troy CywickThis doesn't work.
Troy CywickCan I have this?
Troy CywickCan I have that?
Troy CywickSo we can configure it.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickAnd then the physical things tend to get either pushed aside or not thought about a lot.
Troy CywickSo you have to do physical work in the stores.
Troy CywickAnd the ceilings and then readers are complex.
Troy CywickThis is new technology.
Troy CywickSo if you have metal, lots of metal, if you have metal displays, you know, you have to kind of figure out, is this interfering with the signal?
Troy CywickDo we need to tweak things?
Troy CywickAnd if you don't put that in the primary part of your piloting, you miss it.
Troy CywickYou go to rollout and you start to wonder, why is this happening?
Troy CywickHow come we're getting, you know, errors and stuff like that?
Troy CywickSo there's a lot of physical things other than the software and the project itself, you have to think about out and add to that.
Troy CywickBut I.
Troy CywickI think piloting.
Troy CywickSo we've only had one client ever in our history, pilot and then not go to rollout phase.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickSo piloting, getting it right, and then they're like super excited.
Troy CywickEspecially the best sales reps for us are the store associates, because when they like it, they help us sell it internally.
Troy CywickGot it.
Chris WaltonTroy, you made me think of something, too.
Chris WaltonI've never asked this question before.
Chris WaltonSo as.
Chris WaltonAs you go from pilot stage to rollout because of the unique dynamics of individual store locations?
Chris WaltonI use metal as an example.
Chris WaltonDoes it mean the technology scales easily, or do you have to take into account individual store idiosyncrasies as you go from pilot to store rollout?
Troy CywickThe latter, but it's not.
Troy CywickI haven't seen a huge issue, but it has to be considered.
Troy CywickSo we have a luxury brand that we're rolling out.
Troy CywickAnd you know, just like every other retailer, they have different store formats.
Troy CywickAnd there was a format that has a lot of fixturing, and that fixturing happens to be metal.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickSo we had to go back and move things around a little bit to make it work.
Troy CywickAfter the fact, that retailer wasn't super happy, you know, because that costs money and time and your inter.
Troy CywickYou got people in the store when they're trying to sell stuff, you know, so it wasn't anybody's fault necessarily.
Troy CywickBut there is that little bit of tweaking.
Troy CywickSo you can't just assume you pilot this store and you can roll it out the same way across all the stores.
Troy CywickIt hasn't been a big problem, but it does need to be something.
Troy CywickYou think about it, if there's a big variation in the style of store and the size footprint you have, you have to probably do a pilot in one of each of those stores just to make sure you get all the kinks worked out.
Chris WaltonGot it.
Chris WaltonIt's not a set and forget go from pilot to implementation, which is important to think about.
Chris WaltonYeah.
Anne MazingaWell, Troy, that brings up some other questions that I'd love to close out with, is just how you think about, especially things like RFID usage and what's on the horizon.
Anne MazingaWhat other capabilities are there for retailers who are investing in this now and kind of in the future?
Anne MazingaWhat.
Anne MazingaWhat's ahead?
Troy CywickWell, I think the technology players will all have their, their different version of this story.
Troy CywickAnd there's.
Troy CywickThat's why partners are super important to us, is that they're going to bring things we didn't think about.
Troy CywickYou know, we work with a lot of them, but for us, where, where we're seeing our roadmap go, and, and we know the clients will benefit from this is really around the signals and analytics that are going to come from being able to use all these.
Troy CywickI mean, RFID is one type of sensing.
Troy CywickRight.
Troy CywickIt's important.
Troy CywickIt's the most important in, in.
Troy CywickIn my opinion.
Troy CywickBut all the other sensing that comes in coming into one single platform.
Troy CywickOkay.
Troy CywickAnd then being able to send those signals to the decision makers and the retailers.
Troy CywickI know that sounds simplistic, but the power of the information we'll be able to give them about what's happening in the store.
Troy CywickAnd so that's management capabilities, Ann.
Troy CywickAnd then think about the customer side.
Troy CywickThink of the apps that the customer has, whether they're in the store or she's at home or on the web.
Troy CywickBeing able to know exactly where something is.
Troy CywickIf you're in a hurry and you're running through Manhattan and you want to Pick up a jacket or whatever, it might be a new pair of shoes, not just knowing they have it or don't have it, go in the store, turn right, it's right here.
Troy CywickOr you want me to reserve it for you and leave it at the front?
Troy CywickJust the level of ability to promise will be so much greater and the safety stocks can go away for the most part.
Troy CywickAnd your ability to keep your promise, the confidence level of the consumer going into that store for the stores that do this is just going to be high.
Troy CywickThere's like, like I said I could go on and on, but yeah, those are the things that are coming in the future.
Anne MazingaWell, I think, especially as you think about, you know, like how, how the, just the changes that Google rolled out, like I think we, I keep thinking about how that's going to impact things if the store has better visibility to yes, I have this product, I'm, I'm the closest option to you, or yes, I can ship this product to you.
Anne MazingaAll of those inputs are going to be important for retailers to have too.
Anne MazingaAnd you're right, it's things like, you know, one, having RFID, for example on the product so you know where it is.
Anne MazingaBut even more importantly, having all of your systems feeding to kind of one main brain that's able to distribute that information to the multiple touch points out there, whether it's results in a Google search or it's, you know, in your own app that you're able to, you know, put something on hold for buy online pickup in store from a customer or for associates who are trying to find those items in store.
Anne MazingaIt's all going to come down to really having, having that information at your fingertips in real time.
Troy CywickIt sounds like it's, it's, it's like when the iPhone updated and provided like within three.
Troy CywickI mean it's really similar if you think about it.
Troy CywickRemember when the iPhone was able to detect your location within 3ft or 3 meters.
Troy CywickI can't remember what it was that enabled the Ubers of the world to do what they do now.
Troy CywickAnd the door dash analogy like that.
Troy CywickAnd that's the kind of step change I think we'll see.
Troy CywickSo your Google example is perfect.
Troy CywickWe will see that.
Troy CywickAnd the chat, just think of the chat capabilities, you being able to, you know, maybe it's not hey, Siri.
Troy CywickBut you know, hey, chat bot, I need to find, I like this.
Troy CywickCan you find me a pair of shoes and a belt to match this that are in stock?
Troy CywickYou know.
Troy CywickOh yeah, sure.
Troy CywickYou know, let me guide you to that.
Troy CywickThere's just a lot of possibilities.
Troy CywickYou know, we're just getting started.
Chris WaltonYeah.
Chris WaltonAnd then you as a retailer, have the confidence that it can all get executed for the consumer behind the scenes, and you may or may not even need to be involved in that discussion or that transaction.
Chris WaltonThe end of the day.
Chris WaltonWow, that's that.
Chris WaltonI might steal that analogy, too, about the Apple.
Chris WaltonThe Apple update, because that was really good.
Chris WaltonAnd I like how you said main brain, too, because that's essentially what we've been talking about here.
Chris WaltonWe've been talking about G Store as the OS or the operating system for a new way of doing retail with, you know, RFID being a key linchpin in that, you know, system by way of the overhead array, too.
Chris WaltonSo.
Chris WaltonSo, Troy, that was awesome.
Chris WaltonThank you so much.
Chris WaltonIf people want to get in touch with you, learn more about Gray Orange, what's the best way for them to do that?
Troy CywickYeah, just go to grayorange.com and to look at G Store, you can just click on the retail stores link and, you know, hopefully we'll post a link of that for people to go to and we can respond.
Chris WaltonHeck yeah, we will, Troy.
Chris WaltonHeck, yeah, we will put that link in our podcast description.
Chris WaltonSo for those listening, be sure to check that out.
Chris WaltonAll right, well, that wraps us up.
Chris WaltonThank you to Troy for sitting down with us today.
Chris WaltonThanks to everyone out there for listening in, as always.
Chris WaltonAnd on behalf of all of us at Omnitar, be careful out there.