RFID Tags as Technology for Value Sensing in Real Space Market

Abstract

Following the literature, let us define a chance as an event which plays a significant role in the decision making of human [1]. For example, suppose there is a cheese which seems good to eat, in a supermarket. This cheese, however, costs 2000 JPY (ca 20 US dollars). Customers walking around the store may pick out the cheese, but mostly give up buying when they look at the price label. Suppose a certain customer (called Mr. A) often comes to this supermarket and mostly buys liquor. The manager of this supermarket likes Mr. A to buy things to eat also, but an established lifestyle is hard to change. One day, Mr. A finds a very nice looking cheese close to the liquor shelf from which he usually takes and buys wine. The cheese looks good to eat with wine, but he picks up the cheese and returns it back to the shelf because it is as expensive as 20$. However, he does not go home immediately. He walks to the shelf of cheese and snacks, because he is now interested in something to eat like cheese. Thus, Mr. A learns to buy food with liquor. Although the 20$ cheese was not bought, it led this customer to a new decision of purchase to be continued in his future manner of buying. See Fig.1 for the conceptual sketch of this scenario. The cheese of 20$ here is apparently a chance, because the event of Mr. A’s picking the cheese made a strong influence on the future decision of Mr. A. As well, the supermarket manager may decide to keep the expensive cheese on the same shelf rather than to move it elsewhere only because it is not a frequently sold item. Changing the lifestyle of a customer makes more benefit than having the customer just buy an expensive item. An important point of Mr. A’s case for sales promotion is that the man’s real desire cannot be understood if we pay attention only to his decision of purchase. The data at the point of sales (POS) show he finally came to buy cheap cheese, but does not even imply he was tentatively interested in the outstandingly good cheese and seeked good sidefood for wine. If the manager understands this real desire, he/she will keep the expensive cheese in the shelf as an attractor for wine lovers rather than discard it, or attract them by showing a little cheaper sidefood on the same shelf. In other words, marketing decision maker can catch customers‘ latent interests from the data collected before they come to the register to buy. Thus such a map as in Fig.1, which we call a scenario map, is useful for creating a scenario of marketing. Here, a scenario is a series of actions and events which occur under a coherent O pe n A cc es s D at ab as e w w w .in te ch w eb .o rg