ZBD Solutions

epaper for retail: A powerful tool for convenience and forecourt stores

We already know the main reasons why retailers make the decision to invest in electronic shelf labels: labour savings, improved efficiencies. But a growing number of convenience stores and forecourt retailers are looking to adopt our epaper solution as they recognise its potential beyond far and beyond the usual benefits.

It’s all in the name. Convenience stores are quite simply, convenient. Whether they’re located in the middle of town, or within a petrol station off a busy main road, their customers are all looking for the same things:  a small store, conveniently located, offering a broad range of products with the benefit of extended opening hours. They’re not likely to do their weekly shopping there, but they all expect short queues, quick service and they will pay a premium for that convenience.

Most convenience stores or forecourt shops serve different types of customers during the trading week – predominantly business travellers during the week; and families at weekends. How can retailers target their promotions and optimise pricing for these customers more effectively to improve margins?  Increasing prices of core products at particular times sounds like the answer, but putting this into practice is another matter. The reality of frequently updating paper labels is highly labour-intensive, and most retailers cannot justify the resources. Customers are expecting a fast throughput, they don’t want to see staff on the shopfloor updating paper labels.

Implementing electronic shelf labels enables stores to maintain pricing from a central point and without staff intervention, allowing retailers to implement more profitable pricing strategies quickly and easily. Time of day pricing promotions can be introduced without staff downtime, and can be particularly effective for stores operating 24 hours a day. Because the process is automated, prices can be updated almost instantly.

Whether it’s targeting wine promotions at the after-work crowd or introducing lunch meal deals aimed at the business traveller, electronic shelf labels empower retailers to change promotions and optimise pricing instantly, helping them to utilise their convenience to increase their margins and profitability. And all whilst displaying standard product and pricing information that you would expect from a standard paper label. It’s not surprising that the ROI for electronic shelf labels within these stores can be just a few months.

We’ll be attending the Insight NACS Future of International Convenience & Petroleum Retailing event in London in September if you’d like to meet with us and find out more.  http://www.insightreport.co.uk/conferences/ficr2010/ 

Sarah Hool
Marketing Manager
Sarah.hool@zbdsolutions.com

Lisbon plays host to ZBD's annual partner conference

We were delighted to welcome representatives from virtually all of our VISION partners in Lisbon last week for our 3rd annual partner conference. It was a productive and enjoyable couple of days, and thankfully, luck was on our side: the volcanic ash didn't impact our flights; nor did BA's scheduled strikes and we even experienced a mini-heatwave!

The partner conference provides us with the perfect opportunity to gather all of our partners together and give them an insight into the many developments at ZBD. The conference was a packed day, as always, and proved to be very interactive, as partners were keen to share their thoughts and experiences with us, and bounced ideas off one another. We invited some of our partners to present customer case studies to the rest of the group, where they have been successful in their territories which proved to be really valuable to the rest of our partner network.

The past year has been hugely successful for us, with the support and commitment of our partners, and we've made significant progress since last year's event in Tallinn, Estonia. We are lucky to be supported by a dynamic group of people who are all dedicated to pushing ZBD and our next generation of electronic shelf labels to the next level, and keen to share their experiences with our growing partner community. And judging by the enthusiasm shown by all partners, we'll be announcing more customer wins very soon.

ZBD's VISION partner network grows year on year, and 2010 saw us welcome new partners from Slovenia, Spain and Greece.

Sarah Hool
Marketing Manager
sarah.hool@zbdsolutions.com

ZBD at EuroCIS 2010

ZBD exhibited at EuroCIS, Europe's leading trade show for the retail sector in Dusseldorf, Germany, last week and the interest in our solution was overwhelming, with enquiries from retailers and potential partners from around the globe. There is often talk about electronic shelf labelling (ESL) not taking off, but if last week's show was anything to go by, then the interest is most definitely there. And with the retail sector still experiencing strong price competition, with frequent promotions, VAT rate changes, plus increasing legislative product and price labelling requirements, then it is only a matter of time before the solution becomes even more widely adopted, as retailers recognise the multitude of benefits that it brings. 

When we discuss our ESL (electronic shelf label) solution with a potential customer or partner, they all agree that our epaper displays are well designed, and visually appealing. But what resonates most with each and every one of them, is the lack of infrastructure required to support our solution in store. We show them the Bounce Communicator, which is roughly the same size as a laptop battery pack, and that's it. No wires, no cables. It really sets our solution apart from others in the market.

Sarah Hool
Marketing Manager
sarah.hool@zbdsolutions.com

ZBD @ NRF's 99th Expo: attendance figures up and signs of global retail recovery

It’s hard to believe that NRF just concluded its 99th Annual US-based Exposition in New York City. The fact that any professional organization has been in existence for 99+ years is truly amazing and a testament to NRF’s value and integrity. When NRF began, it was focused on the Specialty Apparel and Department Store retail markets. Over the years, other retail associations have come and gone. There was NMRA (National Mass Retailers’ Association) focused on the likes of K-Mart, WalMart and smaller retailers in the mass merchandise category, and there was Retail Systems focused on most retail store verticals save Food and Grocery but these expositions and organizations no longer exist. Food and Grocery has historically been served by FMI (Food Marketing Institute) in the US. FMI, however, seems to have fallen from grace with the trade show of choice now appearing to be NRF.

This year, the 99th Annual NRF Exposition attracted retailers from all retail sectors to include department, specialty, mass-merchandise and food & drug. They came from across the globe. Top Tier retailers from the UK, Europe, South America and Asia were present in force. The exhibition floor was filled with retail industry representatives looking for solutions and new ideas to increase profitability as well as ways to attract and keep customers through better communications and increased customer service. If a retailer had a problem to solve or was in search of a “better alternative” or a creative idea they did not have to look far to find a viable solution.

This year, ZBD Solutions was an active participant at the exposition. Our stand was located in a featured section on the exposition show hall referred to as “Innovation Station”. Here, a select number of solution providers demonstrated new and creative product offerings destined to change and/or impact the “ways of retail”. Through one-on-one product presentations and pre-recorded interview videos featuring executive officers of the participating “Innovation Station”  companies and their customers, attendees were provided with a thorough understanding of the offerings, origins, functions and proven benefits. Through observing a featured video track, ZBD’s Chief Executive, Shaun Gray and our most recent US customer’s Chief Information Officer, PCC Natural Market’s Gary DeBoer, guests were able to better understand the “how’s and why’s” of “ZBD’s E-paper for Retail” .

Staffed by both US and UK personnel, the ZBD stand demonstrated the applicability of our epop displays to all retail sectors. Attendees were impressed with the superior contrast provided by our “white state” LCD electronic shelf labels as well as the ability of the Bounce software to support and assure the functionality of the total POP solution we offer. Most impressive and appreciated was the Bounce in-store infrastructure. Visitor after visitor was amazed when told of the ability of a single transmitter to support an entire store. A large flat screen monitor, integrated into the stand, ran store videos and customer testimonials from our installed customer base.

 
Early attendance reports indicate that this year's exhibition set new attendance records. A number of additional NRF venues are scheduled for 2010 and expectations are high that retailers are about to experience a significant increase in growth world wide as the economy recovers. That being the case most retailers recognize that maximum profitability will only be realized by those retailers who streamline their operations and capitalize on new technology. ZBD is ideally positioned to help meet that objective.

Alan Kahn
Account Director - US
alan.kahn@zbdsolutions.com

POPAI's Innovation Conference

I was fortunate to attend and speak at the POPAI (Point of Purchase Advertising International) Innovations Conference which had in excess of 50 attendees ranging from POP suppliers, brands and retailers.

The audience received nine presentations in 3 hours based on solutions for in store communication and merchandising to the food and non-food retail sectors.

It was interesting to see suppliers continually working to reduce the environmental impact of operations, as well as developing product ranges with sound environmental credentials.  Everyone working to create a whole new retail experience.

From sustainable backlighting systems, decorative print finishes and digital signage to suppliers of interactive screen content, complemented by a presentation from our partner, Pierhouse, based on the accuracy and relevance of in store messaging using net.tickIT and outputting to ZBD's electronic shelf labels.

ZBD’s epaper for retail solution was extremely well received and created many conversations afterwards regarding opportunities in this sector.  The key messages received were that they believed the solution would save time, money and greatly improve the customer experience.

Overall the Conference provided an opportunity to present, exchange ideas and experiences and was very positive for ZBD, reinforcing the high levels of interest we're receiving in our electronic shelf labels currently.

Lynne Kahr
Sales Manager
lynne.kahr@zbdsolutions.com

Enthusiasm reigns in Estonia

We've just returned from our 2nd annual VISION Partner Conference in Tallinn, Estonia, which was bigger and  better than our first event in Windsor last year. We shared our future plans with key partners from 9 countries across Europe. And despite the language barriers, the enthusiasm for our solution from each and every one of our partners was obvious.

Extending the event to spread over two days gave everyone the chance to ask the questions they wanted to ask; to interact and share ideas with other partners, and to take advantage of one-to-one meetings with ZBD colleagues.

The day's presentations included an ROI case study which was well received; an udpate of customer wins, a presentation from one of our partners on their experience in selling ESL, and a roadmap session which provoked a lot of interesting discussions on the development of future products.

On the evening of the conference, we decided to take our partners to a medieval-themed restaurant in Tallinn's beautiful Old Town, and experience traditional Estonian food by candlelight. Our local partner, ipMedia, were our guides for the evening, and we were delighted when one of EMT's management team joined us for dinner, so our thanks to our colleagues in Estonia for looking after us all so well.

Whilst we were in Estonia, we organised for our video company, VideoIT,  to join us in Tallinn, where they filmed one of the EMT (a subsidiary of TeliaSonera) stores that is benefiting from our epop solution. Look out for the EMT case study on our website in a few weeks time.

Sarah Hool
Marketing Manager
sarah.hool@zbdsolutions.com

We're off to Estonia...

Only 24 hours to go before we all meet in Tallinn, Estonia and the activity here in the ZBD office is high! I’m looking forward to the 2nd annual VISION partner meeting as we are seven months further along our journey than when we all met in the UK last November.

We’ve had some interesting developments in our product range, some you’re aware of already and some you’ll hear about very shortly, and of course we’ve had some successes! And we will definitely be shouting about those in the not too distant future!

With partners jetting in from all over Europe, we're looking forward to sharing our ideas with one another to make the next 12 months just as successful.

Look out for our conference review and photos which will be live on the website next week.

Martin Archer
Channel Manager
martin.archer@zbdsolutions.com

Display Week 2009

San Antonio is host to the Society for Information Displays Annual Conference: Displays Week. The world’s display technology developments will be on show, both at the technical conference and the exhibition. ZBD is no exception and will be presenting two papers at the technical session.

ZBD's papers will highlight a key attribute of the ZBD technology – its low cost, which make the solution highly cost competitive. This is because of the simple fabrication method that allows the feature of bistability to be added to an otherwise standard TN LCD display with negligible extra cost. The methods that have been developed will be described in detail in P65 and P120, which take place on Thursday 4 June in Exhibit Hall D (16.00-19.00). These methods will not just be of interest to those of you interested in bistable displays. They will also be of interest to anyone interested in replicating optical structures as elements for displays at a low cost.

In addition to demonstrations of these methods, we will also be showing our latest epop product range, including a range of display sizes with our improved white state.

If you would like to discuss this with me in person, then please don’t hesitate to contact me, or my colleagues Guy Bryan-Brown and Rich Amos via email: contact@zbdsolutions.com.

Cliff Jones
CTO

Keep it Simple Smart

The Episys Global Signage Convention at Wembley Stadium on 19th May was an excellent day for partners, Episys’ clients and prospects across its 3 vertical sectors: Retail, healthcare and industrial. 

Keynote speaker Peter James Ryan of Red Communications was spot-on with his invocation in this time of turmoil to ‘keep it simple’ - ending with the recommendation that we need to stay relevant, focus on doing effectively what we can affect and above all, to act with confidence. 

Peter’s anecdote about the store where promotional material was not on display despite all the upstream planning, expense and effort because staff had not managed to find the time in their busy schedule underlined again the problems that arise when ‘business science’ retains dependency on manual procedures.

For ZBD, we were pleased to meet many of our UK retail contacts – and some new ones.  Episys were very hospitable, the food excellent and we found it a very worthwhile investment for our business. Those who took a tour of the Stadium were entertained and impressed: we know now that England holds the world record for most toilets – 5,000 – under one roof!  Personally, I might have expected a little more for £850m than the painted breeze-blocks of the changing rooms and ‘tunnel’.

It was also striking how Electronic Displays (and there were other options on show apart from ours) have become a commonplace component in retailers’ discussions about improving the process of getting price and promotions, and consumer and operational information effectively to the place where it’s needed.  We’ve heard several retailers indicate that using Episys’ RES – with ZBD Displays as an integrated ‘delivery option’ - will achieve the step change in price process control they need: giving them end to end control, and above all, ‘keeping in Simple’.

Another point Peter underlined was that there are many examples of retailers who are cutting prices with no volume gain and therefore creating self-inflicted sales and margin decline. Many of these moves are no more rational than what’s going on in financial markets. Again his observation is spot-on for today.  Some may remember last year’s ‘Retail Think Tank’ report by KPMG & SPSL.  The main thrust of their report – released before the Crunch really crunched - was that knee-jerk discounts, promotions and ‘sales’ are detrimental to the health of the retail sector.   We know that more scientific decisions on price and promotions are required: decisions that take account of complex changing circumstances and which carry forward learning to the next decisions.  Humans simply can’t manage all the complexity of these decisions on a large scale.  They need smart software to optimise these processes and now is exactly the right time to invest.

So perhaps a new definition of the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep It Simple, and make it Smart.

Jann Naef
Product Marketing Director
Jann.naef@zbd.co.uk

Digital Signage Expo: Increasing sales whilst reducing costs

Officially referred to as the Digital Signage Expo; the event consisted of focused seminars as well as a product/vender exhibition area numbering about 350 exhibitors and organizations. The seminars were categorized into six (6) "focus" areas: Retail, Ad Agencies/Brands, Hospitality, Public Spaces, Digital Signage 101 and Tech Track. There was a significant "up charge" or cost to attend the seminars which ZBD did not subscribe to.

I did not see a real presence of potential end user customers at the exhibition. I managed to interact with but one retailer who represented a large bicycle shop in Canada. End users are most likely targeted for the sale of digital signage solutions by the industry at US trade shows that focus on their specific verticals: General Merchandise/Specialty retailers at NRF (National Retail Federation), Supermarket/Food retailers at FMI (Food Marketing Institute) and Restaurants at NRA (National Restaurant Association).

As in the UK, the US is under severe recessionary pressures at this point. The business focus is on increasing sales concurrent with reducing costs. The obvious strategy of "digital signage solutions" is to position the deliverables as a means of accomplishing that objective. As a result many of the application offerings were "customer interactive" and touch screen oriented. The message being that digital signage technology is the best way to supplement sales efforts and increase sales volume so as to position the need for fewer sales people. This was obvious in every focus from food service to specialty retailing. There were even solutions demonstrated applicable to the automotive industry.

The attendees seemed pleased with the spectrum of exhibitors based on what they felt was applicable to enhancing their own technology offerings. This show was represented to be the largest to date but this was only the 3rd year of its existence.

alan.khan@zbdsolutions.com