How RFID & GreyOrange’s gStore Are Transforming Retail: Interview With Troy Siwek
In this Omni Talk Retail podcast episode, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga talk with Troy Siwek, GM and Partner at GreyOrange, to discuss how RFID technology is transforming retail.
Key topics covered include:
0:08 – Opening: Discussing RFID’s impact on retail and the recent H&M store experience.
0:28 – Introducing Troy Siwek, GM and Partner at GreyOrange, and his background in retail and technology.
1:15 – Troy’s preparation for the podcast, background in Omnichannel and retail tech, and transition to GreyOrange.
4:29 – Overview of GreyOrange: From supply chain automation to advanced in-store AI applications.
5:52 – How supply chain automation and AI intersect in retail innovation.
7:47 – gStore and AI in action: Real-world examples of automation in fulfillment and in-store operations.
8:45 – Moving from handheld to overhead RFID and the value of real-time inventory tracking.
9:42 – The benefits of RFID: Real-time inventory visibility, replenishment from the backroom, and increased conversion rates.
10:50 – How overhead RFID technology enables constant cycle counts, improving inventory accuracy.
12:29 – Enhanced customer experience: How RFID powers smart mirrors and interactive fitting rooms.
15:06 – Introduction to gStore and how it serves as an operational platform for retailers.
16:16 – RFID as an entry point for retail digital transformation, and how gStore integrates various in-store tasks.
18:59 – Why some retailers are investing in RFID and digital transformation now, especially with omnichannel demands.
20:58 – Use cases in merchandising: Compliance checks, inventory tracking, and heat mapping with G Store.
22:19 – How RFID technology supports product location in stores and enhances in-store experience.
24:03 – Scaling gStore: Considerations for store-to-store variations in RFID technology implementation.
27:13 – Challenges with scaling RFID and the importance of piloting across different store formats.
28:28 – Looking ahead: The future of RFID and other sensing technologies in retail, including the potential of single-platform analytics.
30:52 – The evolving consumer experience: How precise item location impacts omni-channel retail.
32:00 – Final thoughts: The role of real-time data and predictive insights in shaping modern retail.
Music by hooksounds.com
#rfidtechnology #retailautomation #inventorymanagement #retailinnovation #RetailPodcast #supplychain
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Transcript
This podcast is brought to you by the Omnitalk Retail Podcast Network, ranked In the top 10% of all podcasts globally, and currently the only retail podcast ranked in the top 100 of all business podcasts on Apple Podcasts.
Anne Mazinga:The Yamitalk Retail Podcast Network is the network that we hope makes you feel a little smarter, but most importantly, a little happier each week, too.
Anne Mazinga:And today's podcast is just one of the many great podcasts you can find here from us at Omnitalk Retail alongside our Retail Daily minute, which brings you a curated selection of the most important retail headlines every morning, and our signature podcast, the Retail Fast Five, that breaks down each week.
Anne Mazinga:The top five headlines making waves in the world of omnichannel retailing that comes your way every Wednesday afternoon.
Anne Mazinga:I'm one of your co hosts for today's interview, Anne Mazinga.
Chris Walton:And I'm Chris Walton.
Anne Mazinga:And 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 Mazinga:For years, at least.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Chris Walton:Almost a decade, I think, Ann, quite honestly, I believe.
Anne Mazinga:I believe almost a decade.
Anne Mazinga:And 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 Mazinga:It's kind of seeing it come to life for the first time.
Chris Walton:100%.
Chris Walton:Yeah, that store in New York was pretty, pretty impressive.
Anne Mazinga:Yes.
Anne Mazinga:Well, we got so many comments about that video that we.
Anne Mazinga:We decided that it was time to bring in an expert.
Anne Mazinga:Chris and I have been.
Anne Mazinga:Have been following it, but we're not the experts when it comes to rfid.
Anne Mazinga:So we have somebody here who may be new to our amitalk Retail audience.
Anne Mazinga:So 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 Mazinga:And 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 Mazinga:Troy, welcome.
Troy Cywick:Thank you.
Troy Cywick:Hi, Ann.
Troy Cywick:Hi, Chris.
Troy Cywick:Awesome to be here.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, we're excited to have you.
Anne Mazinga:Troy, this is your first time you're on the Omnitalk Retail podcast.
Anne Mazinga:Did you do any sort of special prep for this?
Anne Mazinga:Like, did you need to go on a retreat of some kind or something to get ready.
Troy Cywick:Oh, wow.
Troy Cywick:What is set up?
Troy Cywick:Yes, I did a Zen yoga, clean eating, healthy living, Sedona triple with my wife.
Troy Cywick:So I'm all Zen.
Troy Cywick:You'll get the, you'll get the super chill inward reflecting.
Troy Cywick:Troy, for this talk.
Anne Mazinga:My God, that's so awesome.
Anne Mazinga:You, you win for being most prepared for an Omnitak podcast.
Anne Mazinga:I'm so thrilled, so excited to have you.
Chris Walton:So, yeah, Troy, I can feel it in your voice.
Chris Walton:Like you seem very relaxed, very like in the mood for this podcast, this conversation.
Chris Walton:I wish I could take some of your Zen, Zen like demeanor too.
Chris Walton:But 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 Cywick:Sure, sure.
Troy Cywick:And by the way, talk to me on Thursday and the Zen will all be gone because we're on retail.
Troy Cywick:We know how it goes.
Chris Walton:Yes, we do.
Troy Cywick:Yeah.
Troy Cywick:So I'm at Gray Orange now, but pre Gray Orange, my history is always retail.
Troy Cywick:I think I was born retail.
Troy Cywick:So my first job out of college was Ulta, which back then.
Chris Walton:Oh wow.
Troy Cywick:Ulta 3.
Troy Cywick:Yeah, I know.
Troy Cywick:Don't ask me to say when.
Troy Cywick:And then I traveled to like small software companies, bigger software companies, servicing retail, eventually smarter commerce and IBM.
Troy Cywick:My claim to fame was omnichannel before it was Omni, which is kind of cool for this, this talk.
Troy Cywick:It was multi channel back then.
Chris Walton:Right.
Troy Cywick:Part of the gig.
Chris Walton:So I remember those days.
Troy Cywick:Yeah, I was in the middle of a lot of those.
Troy Cywick:First big retail ship from store, pickup from store.
Troy Cywick:The best buys stapled, two day delivery was like a cool thing back then.
Troy Cywick:Before Amazon.
Troy Cywick:Yeah, a lot of those type of omnichannel, like Lowe's, you know, the ones that really leaned in back then.
Troy Cywick:And then kind of later in my career it was more big tech retail consulting.
Troy Cywick:So 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 Walton:Oh my God.
Chris Walton:You were in ERP implementations and you still want to be in retail.
Chris Walton:That's.
Chris Walton:That's pretty impressive, my friend.
Chris Walton:Wow.
Troy Cywick:Well, I'm not there anymore, so that might.
Chris Walton:You got out of here.
Anne Mazinga:He's moved to greener pastures.
Anne Mazinga:Yes, that's right.
Troy Cywick:That's awesome.
Chris Walton:All right, well, let's talk about Gray Orange.
Chris Walton:So start by.
Chris Walton:Let'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 Cywick:Yeah.
Troy Cywick:So Gray Orange is company of about 700 people.
Troy Cywick:It's 10 plus years old, although it feels like a startup based on the pace of change and everything we have going on.
Troy Cywick:So supply chain automation for the biggest retailers.
Troy Cywick:So if you think of the next day, same day delivery concepts, those are all done with automation.
Troy Cywick:Lots of really complex software, robotics.
Troy Cywick:And that is what the core of what Gray Orange has been up till about two years ago.
Troy Cywick:And that's still a huge piece of our business now for some of the biggest retailers.
Troy Cywick:And 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 Cywick:And that's how we, we came to develop G Store in conjunction with some key retailers.
Chris Walton:So Troy, talk a little bit more about that.
Chris Walton:Like what is, what is.
Chris Walton:I 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 Walton:So, you know, how do those two things fit together?
Chris Walton:Give us some more detail on that.
Troy Cywick:Well, 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 Cywick:I couldn't talk about them at the, you know, at the poker parties or at the bar or anything like that.
Troy Cywick:Like, there's just nothing.
Troy Cywick:I did a financial transformation at, you know, XYZ retailer.
Troy Cywick:But 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 Cywick:I actually saw it.
Troy Cywick:What sold me on Gray Orange was to actually go to a retailer's fulfillment center and just see the magic happen.
Troy Cywick:Hundreds of robots operating with humans, didn't replace all the humans, but.
Chris Walton:Right.
Troy Cywick:You know, just the level of automation was beyond anything I had imagined.
Troy Cywick:And 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 Cywick:Or, you know, I We have smart mirrors deployed at this, this retail.
Troy Cywick:It 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 Cywick:So in the, you know, everybody AI and everything.
Troy Cywick:AI in the drinking fountain.
Troy Cywick:Right?
Troy Cywick:Everybody 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 Cywick:It's real.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:They come together and they, it's.
Troy Cywick:It's.
Troy Cywick:It's kind of cool to watch, right?
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Chris Walton:And I got to go, I got to go with you on that one because, like, yeah, which, which.
Chris Walton:Which line would I want to use in a bar more often and robot or ERP implementation?
Chris Walton:I don't think it's a very close battle on that one.
Chris Walton:And do you agree?
Anne Mazinga:I don't know.
Anne Mazinga:I just love that Troy is like, it's really about what I'm going to tell my friends.
Anne Mazinga:It's not about what I'm actually doing.
Anne Mazinga:Even though both things are incredibly incredib.
Anne Mazinga:It sounds cooler to talk about.
Anne Mazinga:We get it.
Anne Mazinga:You're my, you're our kind of person, Troy.
Anne Mazinga:Well, 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 Mazinga:And when I asked him specifically, I was like, okay, I want to know.
Anne Mazinga:You'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 Mazinga:And 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 Mazinga:And I, you know, you're working with several retailers you mentioned to put G store in.
Anne Mazinga:In motion.
Anne Mazinga:Do 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 Cywick:Yeah, the.
Troy Cywick:Well, it's in pockets, right?
Troy Cywick:So RFID, much more prevalent, bigger ROIs in fashion, luxury.
Troy Cywick:I 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 Cywick:But 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 Cywick:You're talking about where the RFID tags make sense to be placed.
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:So what Gustav and H and M are doing is overhead rfid.
Troy Cywick:Next gen rfid.
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:But the step up, the game changing stuff that the trend setting retailers are doing is overhead rfid.
Troy Cywick:I know where everything is on an XY coordinate in the store and that's what they're doing.
Troy Cywick:And 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 Cywick:And you can link that to all the tech.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:So what are they.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, 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 Mazinga:Like 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 Mazinga:We'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 Mazinga:But what, what does this unlock for them?
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:Like binary in the store?
Troy Cywick:So I'm on the website, I'm on the app.
Troy Cywick:Does the store have inventory, yes or no?
Troy Cywick:And then we gravitated towards, we have 10 of these, but the retailer probably had 15.
Troy Cywick:They just are being very careful, right, with safety stock.
Troy Cywick:And they don't want somebody to be disappointed.
Troy Cywick:And so now this technology, when combined with the software and the overhead readers, you know exactly how much inventory you have.
Troy Cywick:98%.
Troy Cywick:So think of a constant rolling cycle count.
Troy Cywick:With the RFID of two years ago, you still had to go around cycle counting and making sure you updated all your accounts.
Troy Cywick:This is just done.
Troy Cywick:It's done now, of course.
Anne Mazinga:Wow.
Troy Cywick:We all have trust issues.
Troy Cywick:So they'll go audit and just make sure everything's working.
Troy Cywick:You know, that's just always going to be the case, right?
Anne Mazinga:Sure, sure.
Troy Cywick:But 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 Cywick:But 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 Cywick:So 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 Cywick:And they run out.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:So two years ago they're just out and maybe the store manager notices it after an hour or two.
Troy Cywick:Now we know before they run out or danger, danger if they, if they've already run out, go bring that to the store.
Troy Cywick:It's a priority task in the software to bring those items up to the front.
Troy Cywick:And you know, our.
Troy Cywick:We have customers that have told us, you know, this is changing the conversion rate in the stores that operate this technology.
Chris Walton:Yeah, yeah.
Chris Walton:The way I'd sum up what you say, Troy, is like the move from handhelds to overhead arrays.
Chris Walton:It gives you a perpetual state of inventory in your store.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:Like constant state of inventory versus the handhelds are done at a single point in time.
Chris Walton:And yeah.
Chris Walton:So for that reason, you don't get an understanding or an alert, which is kind of the smartness of the system too.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:You don't get an alert when something's out of stock on the floor and sitting in your back room.
Chris Walton:And 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 Walton:Like you can get a.
Chris Walton:You could get a good sense of where those products are.
Chris Walton:Which in an apparel operation is not always the easiest thing to, to figure out if you've worked those back rooms.
Chris Walton:Is that also right?
Troy Cywick:Exactly.
Troy Cywick:And so if you think about it, in our application G store, we load the planograms, right.
Troy Cywick:So they're Digitally loaded.
Troy Cywick:So you have a 3D map.
Chris Walton:Wow.
Troy Cywick:Or back room, front room, omnichannel area, if you have one of those.
Troy Cywick:And so you have the location with a visual.
Troy Cywick:So it really makes the store associate experience way better because they just don't have to do any guesswork.
Troy Cywick:They 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 Cywick:So, so that's available.
Troy Cywick:And then, you know, Ann, you mentioned the, the back room or the changing room.
Troy Cywick:They, 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 Cywick:And can I get a small instead of a medium?
Troy Cywick:And the associate can bring that to you without any verbal or any other conversation.
Troy Cywick:Just 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 Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:Or not having to open the door half dressed and find an associate which.
Chris Walton:Who may or may not be there either.
Chris Walton:Right?
Chris Walton:Yes.
Chris Walton:Right.
Troy Cywick:Yeah.
Chris Walton:Keep.
Chris Walton:All right, you said the phrase a couple of times.
Chris Walton:So G Store.
Chris Walton:So let's talk about that specifically.
Chris Walton:What is G Store in its definition and, and how, how do you envision it helping retailers?
Chris Walton:Or 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 Cywick:Yeah.
Troy Cywick:So, 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 Cywick:Everything that we're seeing right now is use case and project driven.
Troy Cywick:So they want to solve for some problem they're having.
Troy Cywick:It could be cost based or it could be top line based.
Troy Cywick:So I want to go from, you know, my RFID solution that's got 80 to 90% inventory accuracy to 98% accurate.
Troy Cywick:So, so we see these use cases and the entry point for us more often than not is RFID overhead.
Troy Cywick:RFID and some kind of overhead.
Troy Cywick:Yeah.
Troy Cywick:Now 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 Cywick:Nobody's going, hey, can I get a new operating system for my store?
Troy Cywick:And, and the reason is because they often have like five or six apps there.
Troy Cywick:So that's not a natural thing to ask for.
Troy Cywick:They might have Manhattan, SAP, IBM, Oracle, whoever, you know, whoever those providers might Blue yonder, those applications are in the store.
Troy Cywick:So they don't naturally say, can I just, you know, replace all those with something?
Troy Cywick:But 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 Cywick:So our strategy really is not to oversell it, not to try and kick other people out, other systems out.
Troy Cywick:We 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 Cywick:But RFID tends to be the first one they want to do.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, that makes sense.
Anne Mazinga:Um, 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 Mazinga:I 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 Mazinga:It's able to like once you invest in this, in this SaaS model, you're, you're getting more from it.
Anne Mazinga:You'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 Mazinga:And so now retailers are making the investment or what, what's kind of keeping anybody from doing this right now?
Troy Cywick:I think the phase one or if we're just talking RFID right now.
Troy Cywick:Yeah, the phase one was like a kind of a try it con.
Troy Cywick:Well, I don't think the people that did it would call it a proof of concept, but.
Chris Walton:Right.
Troy Cywick:Stick your toe in the water, figure this out.
Troy Cywick:And I don't think they're seeing in many cases as big of an ROI as they would like to or expected to.
Troy Cywick:And I also don't think store adopt.
Troy Cywick:But what I'm seeing is we're picking up a lot of second try, like take two in the movies.
Troy Cywick:We're picking up that take two project.
Troy Cywick:And it's because the adoption of handheld alone or whatever solution they implemented, the store associates weren't loving it.
Anne Mazinga:There's still that extra task in that leg.
Troy Cywick:Extra task, not a big roi.
Troy Cywick:I mean it's kind of cool.
Troy Cywick:They 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 Cywick:So 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 Cywick:You 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 Cywick:Okay, I can do it now, a year later.
Troy Cywick:So we'll see a lot of trailing fashion and shoe retailers.
Troy Cywick:We're seeing a lot.
Troy Cywick:We're piloting a lot right now.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Anne Mazinga:I mean, you brought up something else, Troy, that.
Anne Mazinga:That I just thought of.
Anne Mazinga:Like, the other component of this is that because things are moving so quickly, trends are popping up on TikTok, and you as a.
Anne Mazinga:As a retailer, you have to be ready to respond with that inventory as quickly as possible, get it out so that people can.
Anne Mazinga:Can get their hands on it and purchase it.
Anne Mazinga:I imagine that there's other people within a retail organization who are interested in this technology now as well, too.
Anne Mazinga:Is that.
Anne Mazinga:Am I.
Anne Mazinga:Am I thinking about that the right way?
Anne Mazinga:I mean, is it.
Anne Mazinga:I 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 Mazinga:Like that, to me, now gives more importance in investing in that type of technology.
Troy Cywick:Absolutely.
Troy Cywick:I mean, I'm licking my chops because of all the groups that I've worked with in my retail career merchandising team.
Troy Cywick:There's something for everybody.
Troy Cywick:So merchant compliance.
Troy Cywick: So imagine you have: Troy Cywick:Now you can.
Troy Cywick:Now 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 Cywick:Where they're supposed to have it in the planogram.
Troy Cywick:This new.
Troy Cywick:This new release is out.
Troy Cywick:Our new promotion is out.
Troy Cywick:We're on tv.
Troy Cywick:It's got to be there.
Troy Cywick:Compliance.
Troy Cywick:Get to that store manager and say, hey, go fix your displays.
Troy Cywick:You're behind now.
Troy Cywick:Heat mapping.
Troy Cywick:And you got me going.
Troy Cywick:So I'm, you know, keep.
Troy Cywick:Keep me from.
Anne Mazinga:No, keep going for it.
Troy Cywick:Yeah, but heat mapping, like so, showing all.
Troy Cywick:We.
Troy Cywick:We 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 Cywick:And this Store is red, they might need more help or maybe the store manager struggling.
Troy Cywick:All the different things you can do for the different groups within the retail.
Troy Cywick:I 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 Cywick:Why does it not fit right?
Troy Cywick:Is it the price point's not right?
Troy Cywick:What could be happening?
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:This will give some really cool stuff, including the social stuff.
Troy Cywick:And I think you made me think of H and M.
Troy Cywick:There's a TikTok out there where there, there's a customer working on a smart mirror going, oh my God, I'm shook.
Troy Cywick:I just ordered like, like she was like going crazy because of all this new technology that they're deploying.
Chris Walton:Yeah, that's an interesting point, Troy.
Chris Walton:I mean, I've never thought about that.
Chris Walton:That, you know, as omnichannel continues to advance, the use cases for the foundational technologies are hitting more parts of.
Chris Walton:Because, 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 Walton:And 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 Walton:They 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 Walton:So, yeah, so there's a whole host of use cases here that are really interesting.
Chris Walton:All right, so.
Chris Walton:So 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 Walton:What 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 Cywick:So we really play in two spaces.
Troy Cywick:We play in RFID and non rfid.
Troy Cywick:I think we focus a Lot of the conversation because it's really hot right now on rfid.
Troy Cywick:So there's a lot of physical things that happen in an RFID project.
Troy Cywick:So we always push for like a one to three store pilot.
Troy Cywick:We 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 Cywick:So 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 Cywick:The real one, not the one that works in corporate, the real one in the store in Los Angeles.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:We want to.
Troy Cywick:We want her in the room saying, this works.
Troy Cywick:This doesn't work.
Troy Cywick:Can I have this?
Troy Cywick:Can I have that?
Troy Cywick:So we can configure it.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:And then the physical things tend to get either pushed aside or not thought about a lot.
Troy Cywick:So you have to do physical work in the stores.
Troy Cywick:And the ceilings and then readers are complex.
Troy Cywick:This is new technology.
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:Do we need to tweak things?
Troy Cywick:And if you don't put that in the primary part of your piloting, you miss it.
Troy Cywick:You go to rollout and you start to wonder, why is this happening?
Troy Cywick:How come we're getting, you know, errors and stuff like that?
Troy Cywick:So 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 Cywick:But I.
Troy Cywick:I think piloting.
Troy Cywick:So we've only had one client ever in our history, pilot and then not go to rollout phase.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:So piloting, getting it right, and then they're like super excited.
Troy Cywick:Especially the best sales reps for us are the store associates, because when they like it, they help us sell it internally.
Troy Cywick:Got it.
Chris Walton:Troy, you made me think of something, too.
Chris Walton:I've never asked this question before.
Chris Walton:So as.
Chris Walton:As you go from pilot stage to rollout because of the unique dynamics of individual store locations?
Chris Walton:I use metal as an example.
Chris Walton:Does 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 Cywick:The latter, but it's not.
Troy Cywick:I haven't seen a huge issue, but it has to be considered.
Troy Cywick:So we have a luxury brand that we're rolling out.
Troy Cywick:And you know, just like every other retailer, they have different store formats.
Troy Cywick:And there was a format that has a lot of fixturing, and that fixturing happens to be metal.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:So we had to go back and move things around a little bit to make it work.
Troy Cywick:After the fact, that retailer wasn't super happy, you know, because that costs money and time and your inter.
Troy Cywick:You got people in the store when they're trying to sell stuff, you know, so it wasn't anybody's fault necessarily.
Troy Cywick:But there is that little bit of tweaking.
Troy Cywick:So you can't just assume you pilot this store and you can roll it out the same way across all the stores.
Troy Cywick:It hasn't been a big problem, but it does need to be something.
Troy Cywick:You 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 Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:It's not a set and forget go from pilot to implementation, which is important to think about.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Anne Mazinga:Well, 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 Mazinga:What other capabilities are there for retailers who are investing in this now and kind of in the future?
Anne Mazinga:What.
Anne Mazinga:What's ahead?
Troy Cywick:Well, I think the technology players will all have their, their different version of this story.
Troy Cywick:And there's.
Troy Cywick:That's why partners are super important to us, is that they're going to bring things we didn't think about.
Troy Cywick:You 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 Cywick:I mean, RFID is one type of sensing.
Troy Cywick:Right.
Troy Cywick:It's important.
Troy Cywick:It's the most important in, in.
Troy Cywick:In my opinion.
Troy Cywick:But all the other sensing that comes in coming into one single platform.
Troy Cywick:Okay.
Troy Cywick:And then being able to send those signals to the decision makers and the retailers.
Troy Cywick:I 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 Cywick:And so that's management capabilities, Ann.
Troy Cywick:And then think about the customer side.
Troy Cywick:Think of the apps that the customer has, whether they're in the store or she's at home or on the web.
Troy Cywick:Being able to know exactly where something is.
Troy Cywick:If 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 Cywick:Or you want me to reserve it for you and leave it at the front?
Troy Cywick:Just the level of ability to promise will be so much greater and the safety stocks can go away for the most part.
Troy Cywick:And 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 Cywick:There's like, like I said I could go on and on, but yeah, those are the things that are coming in the future.
Anne Mazinga:Well, 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 Mazinga:All of those inputs are going to be important for retailers to have too.
Anne Mazinga:And you're right, it's things like, you know, one, having RFID, for example on the product so you know where it is.
Anne Mazinga:But 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 Mazinga:It's all going to come down to really having, having that information at your fingertips in real time.
Troy Cywick:It sounds like it's, it's, it's like when the iPhone updated and provided like within three.
Troy Cywick:I mean it's really similar if you think about it.
Troy Cywick:Remember when the iPhone was able to detect your location within 3ft or 3 meters.
Troy Cywick:I can't remember what it was that enabled the Ubers of the world to do what they do now.
Troy Cywick:And the door dash analogy like that.
Troy Cywick:And that's the kind of step change I think we'll see.
Troy Cywick:So your Google example is perfect.
Troy Cywick:We will see that.
Troy Cywick:And the chat, just think of the chat capabilities, you being able to, you know, maybe it's not hey, Siri.
Troy Cywick:But you know, hey, chat bot, I need to find, I like this.
Troy Cywick:Can you find me a pair of shoes and a belt to match this that are in stock?
Troy Cywick:You know.
Troy Cywick:Oh yeah, sure.
Troy Cywick:You know, let me guide you to that.
Troy Cywick:There's just a lot of possibilities.
Troy Cywick:You know, we're just getting started.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Chris Walton:And 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 Walton:The end of the day.
Chris Walton:Wow, that's that.
Chris Walton:I might steal that analogy, too, about the Apple.
Chris Walton:The Apple update, because that was really good.
Chris Walton:And I like how you said main brain, too, because that's essentially what we've been talking about here.
Chris Walton:We'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 Walton:So.
Chris Walton:So, Troy, that was awesome.
Chris Walton:Thank you so much.
Chris Walton:If people want to get in touch with you, learn more about Gray Orange, what's the best way for them to do that?
Troy Cywick:Yeah, 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 Walton:Heck yeah, we will, Troy.
Chris Walton:Heck, yeah, we will put that link in our podcast description.
Chris Walton:So for those listening, be sure to check that out.
Chris Walton:All right, well, that wraps us up.
Chris Walton:Thank you to Troy for sitting down with us today.
Chris Walton:Thanks to everyone out there for listening in, as always.
Chris Walton:And on behalf of all of us at Omnitar, be careful out there.
