Futuretail: The Retail Technology Weblog

Isn't this the coolest thing ever!

Wow, I really like  thyis.

The hiatus is over...

After a long forced delay (strange how both Intel and SAP refused to allow me to blog uncensored...) the retail technology blog is back. I'm now back on the "outside" where I belong, free of the chains and shackles of working for a particular technology company. I've accepted a position as VP of strategy for CMD agency, a strategic marketing firm in Portland, Oregon. In the spirit of introducing you, dear reader, to CMD... I'm going to devote this post to a couple ideas we're kicking around that have some serious potential to redefine the retail shopping experience.

Mobile Tagging

This has kicked around for years, but we finally have a critical mass of mobile phones able to read the little suckers. With a huge portion of the US using data plans and Web browsers on their phones, manufacturing brands now have the ability to deliver product information right into the hands of shoppers in the store without hitting a retailer-owned network. Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Clause...

By the way, if any of you want to try it out (and have a compatible phone) point your camera at the tag above and come visit our Website...

Scalable Browser Windows

OK, so it ain't that new. But...

One of the magically delicious things about the Opera browser is that it can scale the ENTIRE PAGE of HTML code down to fit a smaller screen. This means the integrity of the interface can be maintained (albeit with little tiny letters) with one consistent set of code that underlies both a Web-based kiosk and a mobile device hitting the same application. For a simple demo of what I'm talking about, look at www.cnn.com on both an iPod touch and a T-Mobile Dash... On the touch, you see the SAME thing as you'd see on the desktop browser, just smaller (and zoomable). And yes, I know the iPhone/iPod touch doesn't use Opera... but the point is the same.

Decoupling the interface from the application should revolutionize "small screen" applications (customer cell phones, Symbol handhelds, UMPCs, etc.) in the retail environment.

So that's all for now. But more to come, to be sure...

An ATM for prescription drugs

A sexy half-step in the right direction: consumers in California and Virginia can now refill their prescriptions using an ATM-like kiosk machine rather than interacting with a pharmacist. Sounds great, but it really isn't that big a step forward. It's basically a lock-box for filled prescriptions, and pharmacists still have to put the drugs into pill bottles, so it really only makes it so consumers can pick up their prescriptions after hours when the pharmacy is closed. What would really make this interesting (albeit challenging for regulators) would be to combine this technology with the machines pharmacists already use to dispense controlled narcotics. But for now, I guess the big shiny box will attract some shoppers and turn off others.

Cell phone payments coming to the US

Well, in addition to being able to use their cell phones to order things from Amazon with the camera and summon Godzilla, Japanese consumers have been able to make purchases using their phones as a contactless credit card. Well, the technology must be past ready for prime time now, because we're about to get it here in the US. Mastercard is piloting a cell phone version of its RFID-based payment system that will allow consumers to make purchases here in the US.

Bosch begins RFID tagging power tools

Now this is an effective use of RFID tags: construction sites. A contained environment, with lots of high-value tools lying around. So lo and behold, Bosch tools has announced it will incorporate RFID tags into its power tools as part of its "Safe & Sound" anti-theft program. The tools will cost 2% to 5% more with an RFID tag embedded, but given that tool theft is a $300 million to $1 billion problem in the US, I don't see many contractors balking at that. Note: this is exactly how to deploy RFID against a problem. Scope the problem first, then build the solution. At 2% of a $100 tool (on the cheap end), that accounts for a $2 tag, so we don't need to worry about tag cost once we get the math right.

CVS offers "one time use" digital video cameras

In what they claim in the press release to be the " world's first single-use point-and-shoot digital video camera" (despite the fact that Ritz Camera has already introduced them), CVS has taken the disposable camera digital and video. For $30, consumers can buy a video camera that they bring back to CVS for "processing" that extracts 20 minutes of video and burns it onto a DVD. It's a cute idea, but note to CVS: it's already being hacked for reuse...

Best Buy in more customer unfriendliness

It appears that in addition to refusing to take $2 bills, Best Buy is bound and determined to annoy even more of its customers (even those of us who are "Angel Customers" who do a lot of business with them and actually use BestBuy.com). According to Gizmodo, Web prices shown in Best Buy stores are sometimes $20 to $50 higher than the Web prices shown when customers access bestbuy.com from outside the store. Now, different Web-store prices are nothing new... but actually implying that a Web price isn't a Web price is deceptive. C'mon Best Buy... take the $2 bills and show us honest prices...

New paper blocks RFID

Possibly an interesting application for privacy for contactless cards: a new paper (warning: Google translation from Japanese) that blocks RFID signals using a very thin layer of metal. I don't think this would be terribly useful to block the signals from tags on products (except maybe in shopping bags), but I could very easily see it in a wallet or purse to ensure privacy of your RFID-chipped loyalty and ID cards.

RS2005 Update: Notes from Gartner/RIS

No BIG suprises at the 15th Annual Retail Technology Study presentation today, but a few interesting notes:

• only 18% of respondents valued "a focus on revenue generation" as a skill for CIOs. This is abyssmal; WAY too much focus on a shrinking bottom line and little on increasing the top.
• out of the top 10 technologies for 2005, less than 5% difference between all ten, so the "usual suspects" become even more usual
• finally, retailers are realizing ROI from that bugaboo of infrastructure investments: faster network connections: 47% anticipate ROI in a year from faster bandwidth investments, and 16% more anticipate ROI within two years
• 22% have either deployed or have deployment underway in wireless POS.
• Self-checkout is still not spreading outside grocery; Jeff referenced Home Depot, but other that that... nothing. No surprise; it's not the panacea the vendors keep pitching.
• 6% of retailers claim to be "up to date" with their RFID technology investment. That's funny... unless Wal-Mart got to vote a bunch of times, which 6% could that possibly be? The joys of self-reporting.
• Education and training are big opportunities in the store. With all those kiosks and open POS systems (read that as "screens") in the store, there are all kinds of new opportunities for electronically delivered training, and the flexible interfaces of next-gen POS lends itself VERY well to performance improvement theories.
• 13% of retailers claim to be segmenting customers by "need." More crack-smoking here: they may possibly have a centralized model for that, but virtually no one is executing on the segmentation.
• One thing Jeff kept repeating was "if RFID works..." My comment: it's not an issue of the technology works or not; it's whether or not retailers can create a compelling applications using the technology. Keep in mind, Wal-Mart's RFID trials are still several orders of magnitude more inaccurate than current "middle of the pack" manual processes.

Some things that (once again) weren't really covered:

• offshoring vs. packaged apps
• granularity of "kiosk" and "wireless device" categories
• NOTHING on customer-owned technologies like PDA and cell phone

Live from Retail Systems!

Well, I'm trying something new. In addition to posting blog entries from the show floor, I'll be posting Audioblog entries as well. You can listen to the intro below, and let me know what you think.

Netflix 1, Wal-Mart 1/2

Having offered the same basic service (with less selection but lower prices), Wal-Mart has apparently decided that the Netflix DVD rental offering is stronger than its in-house efforts. What's really interesting is that this is the first substantive multi-channel "co-brand" on the Wal-Mart site. Big picture, it sets the stage for a WM acquisition of Netflix, in my opinion. Wal-Mart is clearly making a services play with DVD rental, and it won't let that service operate outside its brand umbrella for too long. Look out Blockbuster....

Digital advertising screens communicating with Bluetooth

OK, so the real question here is... what constitutes "opting in?" If your Bluetooth enabled phone is set to "discoverable mode," when you pass by these plasma display screens at Heathrow airport, you will receive a message asking if you'd like to download the video content to your phone. One of the big drawbacks of the system is that currently, the content you download is a Volvo ad... not something I would want cluttering up the scarce memory inside my cell phone. A similar project, where infrared technology was used to beam a coupon for a Nintendo Pokemon game, apparently resulted in 10% of the coupon recipients redeeming the coupon. An impressive stat, no doubt, but perhaps if the video clip of the new Volvo included a $1000 off coupon, it might make me want to download it.

Radically cool display solves "want fries with that?" question

This is way too cool to be an academic project, right? I mean, this has to be something from a truly innovative high-tech company's lab... but alas, it was a graduate student who built this incredibly cool application that combines an over-table digital projector with a pressure sensitive surface on the table to make the area around a diner's plate fully interactive. Click here to watch the system in action (Warning: QuickTime video).

A biometric alternative to RFID: vein scanning

Retailers considering technologies to allow customers to identify themselves (note that I did not say to identify customers...) should take a look at new technology from Fujitsu that uses the unique pattern of veins in every human being as a way to identify an individual when they pass their hand over a scanner. This is already wildly cool from an access control perspective, but think of all the applications we are considering customer-owned RFID tags for. If identifying myself simply requires passing my hand over a scanner (as opposed to keying in my telephone number then pressing my finger on a fingerprint device), there are countless applications to create an experience with customers without embedding an RFID chip surgically (ewwww......)

Tenth Amendment battle heats up

OK, for any of you who don't know it, the tenth amendment to the Constitution delegates all powers "not delegated to the US by the Consitution" to the states. So what happens when the feds legislate the use of RFID in ID cards while California bans the use of RFID in ID cards? It's bad enough that I can't use a piece of federal ID like a passport to buy California Pinot Noir... what happens when they make me surrender it when I land at LAX?

RFID-chipped cell phone "shopping" in Japan

This is interesting, mostly because it combines the receiving/display power of a consumer-owned device (the cell phone) with an RFID-tag that allows a retailer to easily identify the consumer - when the consumer wants to be identified, that is. Basically, a company in Japan has launched a service that allows consumers with RFID-chipped phones to wave their phone at a reader in their favorite stores, thus alerting the retailer that the consumer is interested and to send them more information. The challenge (among others) would be that while "universal loyalty" functionality is great for consumers, it ain't so good for retailers. Of course, we're still waiting for RFID-chipped phones here in the US, let alone ones with some degree of integration into the phone itself. Sigh.

WiMax banner day: now coming to a Space Needle near you

As if Sprintel wasn't big enough WiMax news for one day... a WiMax setup was installed on the Space Needle, offering 6 MBit/second speed for $800 per month. Since that's four times faster and only slightly more expensive than a landline T1 (plus, it's... ahem... wireless!), it will be quite appealing for businesses that don't want to deal with local telco installation... such as (drum roll...) retailers in malls.

Sprintel WiMax news

Now that you've heard the stories about Sextel , get ready for Sprintel, as Intel and Sprint have joined forces to roll out WiMax based networking. I know we'd all been hoping WiMax would be free (which it WILL sooner or later...) but this news means that we're one step closer to a unified device that is: a) a cordless phone (running over WiFi) when someone is in their house; b) a connected PDA (running over WiMax) in urban areas; c) a standard cell-data phone (running over EDGE/3G) when not connected to an IP connection. Sooner or later... sooner or later.

The future of text messaging: Morse code

Hot on the heels of the announcement that carrier pigeons are faster than DSL at delivering information comes the bombshell result of a contest between a 93-year old telegraph operator and a 13 year old SMS text messager: Morse code is faster than text messaging. What makes this interesting is that it is a powerful story of the importance of interface. A simple telegraph key is much easier to operate than thumbpressing tiny buttons. If you're intrigued by this story, check out "The Victorian Internet", a wonderful book about the parallels between the telegraph and the Internet booms. You'll also note in the article above that the 13 year old was allowed to use SMSlish, while the 93 year old spelled out the entire message properly. So evn f u use bad speling to txt ur pals 2 tel thm wot u r up 2, it wont b ne fstr than ur grndads mrse cod. Damn, I'm getting 3L33T. Word.

An interesting use for item-level RFID

Though it costs about $16,000 (thanks, George W. for making the dollar equal to 50 pence), this device promises an unheralded degree of freedom for the blind. Ironically, the same thing could be accomplished if retailers just PUBLISHED maps of their stores, via Flash or Adobe vector format. C'mon folks... 65 million cell phone users... GIVE THEM SOMETHING in store!

Finally, a way to bypass customs (not US, of course)

OK, for any of you who have ever come back from Hawaii with orchids, Hawaiian flowers and seeds for birds of paradise and then needed to go straight to London... now you can send all that stuff from the airport easily, rather than cramming it all into a FedEx envelope. Also useful if you want to keep your lighter rather than ditching it at the TSA checkpoint.

Biometrics once again not-quite-ready-for-prime-time

One of the biometric apps I've often thought would work well in retail is signature verification. Unlike iris scanning (too "Minority Report" and also a dangerous place for enemy assassins to hide needles and poke your eyeball) and fingerprinting (face it, if you have to key your phone number in, why not just add four secret digits, call it a PIN, and save the cost of the fingerprint scanner?), people are accustomed to signing their name on checks and credit card receipts. Unfortunately, when put to the test, signature biometrics don't work as well as one would hope. Oh well, IBM's been working on it for years. Hopefully someone will finally make it work.

Ethernet-powered computer debuts

UK computer company DSP Design has just released a new flat-panel, touch-screen based PC that is powered by Ethernet (PoE) rather than a traditional power source. So what does this mean for retailers? Well, first, it means that the device can be placed anywhere in a store, and being low-voltage, Ethernet cable is both easier to run than power cabling and has the bonus of not being subject to local building codes. Second, as the linked article points out, Ethernet is a global standard... so the devices work everywhere. The same cannot be said for traditional power supplies that need dozens of adapters to work everywhere. This means that multi-national retailers could deploy a single device to multiple countries. It should come as no surprise that this device originated in Britain, home of the world's clunkiest three-prong power plugs. But alas, I doubt even they will give me a PoE tea kettle and electric razor.

California cleverly bans RFID in identity cards

Boneheaded legislation: 1, common sense: 0. Once again, California has proved that it's legislators just don't get it. There's a bill making its way through the state senate that bans the use of RFID technology in identity cards, including (but not limited to): ID cards for state employees (so much for secure access), library cards (so much for faster checkout), health insurance cards (so much for fast-response medical care from EMS units), and student IDs (so much for contactless vending, ticketing, and buying a hot dog at the snack bar). Note to legislators: don't ban the technology, support encryption and punish abusers. What's next, you're going to ban automobiles because they can be used in bank robberies?

SMART cars coming to the US

OK, I'm literally giddy with joy about this. SMART cars, those tiny little two seaters that are so much... "fun"... to drive around the M25 in London, are coming to the US! So why am I posting this here? Remember those Q1 2005 Wal-Mart results that were a little less than spectacular? Well, though Wal-Mart blamed "poor Easter weather" or some other such nonsense, the truth is that driving the old F250 pickup truck to the Wal-Mart twenty miles away is putting a serious dent in some people's pocketbooks, with gas prices the way they are. While I can't imagine the regular SMART car appealing to the same demographic as monster truck rally, when they start shipping THIS beast to the US, I'm buying one. It gets 60 MPG and looks hella cool and who cares if the F250 can out accellerate me...

Next from the land of the Rising Sun... HyperSonic Sound vending machines

So I'm sure by now some of you think I should rename this "Japan Futuretail" but I swear, if we only had these cool devices here I would write about them. Apparently thousands of Japanese soda machines are now going to woo passersby with the sound of soda pouring using a new technology called HyperSonic Sound (sounds like an oxymoron to me, but then again, I'm not a scientist...) It looks like the company that created it (oh-so-cleverly-named American Technologies) also makes some "industrial/military grade" noise cancelling gear... I'll be first in line to buy a "Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD)"  if the FCC unwisely decides to allow the obnoxious guy next to me on an airline flight to loudly use his cell phone.

Marks & Sparks and Amazon... Oh My!

OK, so on the surface, this is just another Amazon.com deal... but UK retailer Marks & Spencer has announced that they are partnering with Amazon.com to run their e-commerce operation. Now Marks & Spencer has been ailing a bit lately... well, more than a bit (despite making the world's coolest men's suit) but I don't think e-commerce is going to be a barnburner for them. But if you read the story closely, you'll see that Amazon is going to be handling "in-store and telephone ordering" but M&S is going to still handle warehousing and fulfillment. It will be interesting to see if this deal either A) improves Amazon's ability to do interesting things in stores or B) improves their UK distribution/fulfillment to the point where they take over for other retailers as well. 

Target on drugs... seriously!

Already known for bringing style to the masses with the Mossimo, Michael Graves and Phillipe Starke, Target will begin offering a stylistic (and hopefully practical) treat to prescription customers when it switches over to a new prescription pill bottle designed by Deborah Adler, a graduate of the New York School of Visual Arts. While it isn't quite the RFID-enabled pillbox we've all been lusting after, it certainly looks more legible than the old pill containers. And it even looks cool, which is a bonus if the medicine you're taking makes you feel a bit dorky.

Ringtones eclipse online music sales (temporally, not financially...)

For all of you 14 year old girls perfectly balanced normal folks out there who think it is of critical importance to have your phone ring with a perfect rendition of the latest pop song (personally, mine rings with a monotonal version of the "Wallace & Gromit" theme, or "ET" if my wife is calling), you can now not just get the latest ringtone... you can get it before you even hear the song. Cingular Wireless is making Coldplay's new single "Speed of Sound" available via ringtone before it even hits the radio airwaves next week. Ironically, people are willing to pay $2.49 for a ringtone version of a song, while complaining bitterly about the $.99 Apple charges at iTunes. Go figure.

WiMax progress: high speed Internet on commuter trains

Don't get too excited yet, Northeasterners... we can add the UK to the list of countries eclipsing the US with wireless access and gadgets. T-Mobile is now offering 802.11b WiFi service on selected train lines between London and Brighton. The service is poised to use WiMax to connect to the trains and WiFi within them, meaning consumers will be able to connect just as they would any other T-Mobile hotspot. Think we'll get it here? Unlikely, with Amtrak bankrupt and no one else stepping up to take its place.

Shameless self promotion

OK, so it's not really retail technology news, per se... but I've got a BUNCH of upcoming speaking events, including a really cool series on multi-channel retailing. Check out the "Speaking Engagements" section on the lower left.

Man arrested at Best Buy for using $2 bills

OK, so it's not strictly speaking "technology news," but apparently a disgruntled customer at Best Buy was arrested for using $2 bills to pay for an installation he wasn't happy with. Any of you who have heard me speak in the past year may have heard the story about how an alert Wal-Mart cashier (Janice Sanders) called her manager when a customer tried to pass a (fake) $1 million bill. Note to Best Buy's HR department: please tell your cashiers that $2 bills are REAL (albeit unusual)... I'd hate to be arrested when I bring my penny collection in to buy a new ink cartridge...

Forget King Kong... here comes Donkey Kong!

Nintendo has joined the ranks of Apple and Sony in opening a flagship store to showcase the products it manufacturers. The new store will be in Times Square, which is... well, a "traditional" choice to say the least. When are manufacturers going to realize that no one has free time on trips to NYC to spend browsing and playing with their gadgets. Hint to Nintendo: airport retail. With an average wait time of 90 minutes, the 500 million passengers per year who pass through the USA's top 50 airports have plenty of time to kill on the Nintendo DS and GameCube. Who knows, we might even pay for the privilege: next time you're in the Atlanta airport, check out the "Dasani Listening Zone" in the Delta Crown Room for a chance to try Bose noise cancelling headsets and Sirius satellite radio.

New e-ink ESLs now available in Japan

OK, so it didn't quite round out our Japanese news this week... Finally, e-ink technology (using high-contrast black-and-white balls suspended between two sheets of plastic) rather than LCD technology has made it to commercial deployment in electronic shelf labels (ESLs) in Japan. Why is this news? Power consumption for one thing. A similar tag I was given by e-ink (different company) ran for two years on two AA batteries... Not bad for a constantly changing display visible from across the room.

Rounding out our Japanese news... China boycotts Japan

Reacting to perceived Japanese support for revisionist textbooks, the China Chain Store and Franchise Association announced a boycott of 10 Japanese companies. While this may be slightly more impactful than the American boycott of all things French prior to the Iraq war (remember "Freedom Fries"?), globalization will likely gloss this over pretty quickly. Good thing it wasn't the other way around... somebody boycotting China. Imagine the riots at Wal-Mart when those $15 billion in Chinese-made goods don't materialize on the store shelves and customers have to suffer those exorbidant American-made prices...

The Apple Store goes mobile... in Japan anyway.

Proving once again that - like Godzilla and vending machines that dispense beer and toilet paper (though not the same machine) - Japan gets all the cool things first. Now the Apple Store in Japan is available in a mobile-optimized form. (Don't click the link if you're not reading this on a mobile DoCoMo phone: you'll just see "You cannot utilize this ｻ ｲ ﾄ from the portable terminal of the customer."). It looks like Apple is the first "brick and mortar" retailer to offer multichannel features that extend to the phone (Amazon.co.jp did it earlier this year)

New retail format - free vending

Japanese vending company Fuji Electric Retail Systems has introduced a new vending system that has the ability to switch to a free mode when the power goes off, thus providing emergency sustenance to patrons. Just think... if we'd had these in college... where all you had to do to get free drinks is unplug the darned thing... This may work well in Japan, where everyone is honest, but here in the good old USA, we know how to take full advantage of a retailer's civic-spiritedness.

Mark Hurd to head HP

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that NCR CEO Mark Hurd has been selected to head Hewlett-Packard in the wake of Carly Fiorina's departure. This is a really interesting pick, since Hurd came up through Teradata rather than NCR's hardware side. It makes sense from a financial perspective: over the past two years, NCR has outperformed HP by over 6x... and of course, Wall Street likes it: HP shares up 5% on the news, NCR shares down 12%.

Merchandising goes 3D

I saw a couple 3D display vendors at GlobalShop last year, but the products just weren't that impressive. If you weren't in just the right place, at just the right time, the image wasn't that clear. Well, a Spanish company called Special Things has demonstrated a new system, complete with "research study" findings showing a 46% improvement in sales when products were shown on a 3d kiosk (note: page is a Google translation of the Spanish site). My favorite quote from the product's FAQ: "Is IMAGEPRO3D® based on a PC system? If." Spanish language ambiguity: 1, machine translation: 0....

How to cause mischief with RFID tags

OK, so with all the talk about RFID privacy, isn't it time to take a moment to contemplate the physical security of the RFID tag itself. Consider for a moment the hypothetical situation that your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart has RFID tags on every product. What is to stop you from:

a) taking one of these into the store plugged into your PDA, walking through the aisles, and in about 10 minutes having an exact SKU by SKU inventory count for the store? (Remember, ePC is standards-based, so the same tag means the same thing in every store...)

b) taking one of these into the store, and walking through selectively (or indiscriminately, for that matter) zapping RFID tags on products, thus rendering the entire RFID-based check-out and security system inoperable and causing all the affected tags to have to be identified and replaced? (This form of sabotage would be EASY... responding to consumer pressure, the Metro Future Store installed an RFID-tag de-activator outside the checkout... why couldn't you simply do the same thing in the store?)

Consumer-facing RFID needs a little more thinking before it becomes mainstream.

I'd like an MP3 with my Slurpee please

7-11 CEO James Keyes announced that the company would begin exploring selling digital downloaded music, as well as iPods. This is a pretty cool idea, but once raises the problem of the interface in the store. Is a relatively fragile device such as a USB/Firewire iPod connector going to survive the average Slurpee-swilling patron (I include myself in that crowd, by the way...) plugging an iPod into it over and over? Oh, if only Bluetooth were easier to use. Or perhaps WUSB will finally catch on. Of course, 7-11 is no stranger to the music download biz, having already run a promotion with Apple's iTunes. This would be a really interesting play combining digital music sales with Intel's WiMAX solution. Imagine pre-paid/pay-as-you-go broadband Internet (WiMAX), "cell" service over UP (Skype) and downloaded music under a 7-11 brand. Watch out Tesco...

Wal-Mart extends RFID mandate to endagered wildlife

So, in a stunning development likely to anger both animal rights activists and privacy activists (and animal privacy activists), the government of China has apparently announced  plans to tag all the panda bears in captivity. I had never really thought of panda bears as particularly fast or prone to supply chain shrink, but then again, I'm hardly an expert.

Welcome to Futuretail

Greetings. If you're reading this, you must have some interest in retail technology (or are hopeless lost on the Internet, in which case click here for something far more interesting.

I started this Weblog with the goal of providing a forum for random "bite-sized" bits of analysis on retail technology. The shopping experience of today is remarkably similar to that at the turn of the (last) century. Sure there are more products, the stores are bigger, and you don't have to wait two months for your Sears & Roebuck house to be delivered via railcar. But the experience of shopping is the technological equivalent of using the telegraph.

Welcome to the Internet age: Futuretail will provide an unbiased, objective look at technologies as they emerge into the retail environment. I hope you enjoy the ride.

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This statement covers the site retailtech.weblogs.com (“Futuretail”) and any associated content including email and rss. Please read this statement carefully before using proceeding to access Futuretail. Your use of Futuretail indicates your agreement to abide by the Terms in effect.

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Trademarks

Futuretail is a trademark of James Crawford. All other trademarks, logos, brand product names, and images are property of the respective holders.

Disclaimer

Futuretail is not associated or affiliated in any way with any site referenced or linked to within. All views expressed in Futuretail are solely the opinions of the individuals who state them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the owner(s) or Futuretail. The owner(s) and Futuretail are not responsible for the opinions expressed in different areas of Futuretail, nor in sites that link to Futuretail.

External Links Disclaimer

Futuretail contains links to external, third party web sites along with relevant commentary to provide our visitors with an up to date digest of current news stories.

By providing links to other sites, Futuretail does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to Futuretail.

Futuretail does not operate or control and has no responsibility for the information, products and/or services found on any external sites. Nor do we represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any information, products and/or services provided on or through any external sites, including, without limitation, warranties of any kind, either express or implied, warranties of title or non-infringement or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Visitors to Futuretail assume complete responsibility and risk in your use of any external sites. Visitors should direct any concerns regarding any external link to its site administrator or webmaster.

Futuretail Comments and Discussion Terms of Use

In order to make our Comments interesting and informative for our users, the following guidelines must be adhered to by all users posting and/or viewing comments:

- If a comment is made using your identity it will be deemed to have been posted by you.
- Do not post abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory,libelous, offensive or sexually explicit material.
- Do not intentionally make, false or misleading statements.
- Do not offer to sell or buy any product or service.
- Do not post material that infringes copyright.
- Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law.
- Keep all comments relevant and 'on topic' to the particular Futuretail posting open for comments.
- Futuretail will not accept responsibility for information posted in the Comments.

If Futuretail receives notice that any posting is not in keeping with these terms and conditions or the intended use of the Comments, Futuretail may remove that posting and/or any other related postings.

Please note that unless Futuretail is notified of a posting that is not in keeping with these terms and conditions then we will not remove it, furthermore we do not exercise any form of editorial control or censorship of Comments other than the above stated procedure.

Notification of Changes
Whenever Futuretail changes our Terms of Use, we will post those changes to this Statement, and other places we deem appropriate so our users will be aware.

Contact Information
If you have any questions or notices of violations to these terms and conditions, please contact us at jcrawford@retailforward.com