The smart card as a component in a disseminated retail system

Abstract

This paper is based upon the premise that current thought excludes customers from definitions of retail systems. They are cited as that towards which the system is directed; a ‘them and us’ philosophy couched in the language of marketing. If the purpose of retailing is only possible to define with reference to customers, then customers are a sub-set of the retailing system, and should therefore be inclusive in such a definition. Holistic systems integration is therefore not concerned with compatible computer systems, which are suggested as being an operational prerequisite for a modern retail business, but rather with the integration of customers into the system via the interface of human and technological systems. Customers are a mirror image of the millions of items of information held by retail computer systems, and in a real sense they represent one another. Whilst the retail system contains precise information concerning product, via electronic point of sale, customers are unable to integrate through a lack of compatibility with the technical nervous system. This is where the portable microchip in the shape of the smart card comes into focus, as through the technical compatibility afforded by this device, consumers are able to be absorbed into the, now disseminated, computer system that is the nervous system of the retail business. To clarify this perspective, research has been carried out on the majority of the UK's major retail business organizations to define their attitudes to the adoption of smart card technology, and results are organized in terms of reasons for and against use, and subsequently analysed in terms of the micro marketing possibilities provided by a disseminated retail system utilizing smart technology.