Reaction to Persistent Theft at Wal-Mart

 Have now seen several examples of this,  reaching epidemic levels

Will persistent theft compel Walmart to raise prices or close stores?

32 EXPERT COMMENTS  by George Anderson   in RetailWire

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon yesterday told CNBC that his company has a growing theft problem

Mr. McMillon said that theft has reached levels that are “higher than what’s historically been” the case for the retailer. “If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close,” he said.

Walmart’s CEO said the company has put safety and security measures in place to address theft. He said that “local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner” is part of the response needed to curtail the frequency with which goods are illegally walked out of stores.

In response to a question about laws that make it more difficult to prosecute shoplifters, Mr. McMillon said that laws and practices vary by location and that the retailer would benefit from greater “policy consistency and clarity” so that it would be able to make  capital investments where they make the most sense in thwarting thieves.

Walmart’s McMillon also offered a nuanced explanation of how inflation is affecting consumers in the CNBC interview.

“It’s probably helpful to break that [inflation] down into different categories. Fresh food is more volatile, it fluctuates more, so today’s beef prices are down and chicken prices are still high. Produce prices are relatively low relative to what they were before,” he said. “Dry grocery, processed foods and consumables are where the inflation is most stubborn. Double digit inflation rates have been around for a while and it looks to us like they’re going to be with us for a while. So that’s a primary area of focus for us — trying to come up with creative ways with our suppliers to get prices down. Customers choose private brands in those environments more often.”

Inflation, he said, was less of a problem in general merchandise categories such as apparel, sporting goods and toys where “prices have come down more aggressively.” Mr. McMillon said.

“We’re still inflated but we’re not inflated nearly as much as we are in the other categories,” he said. “So when you think about what’s happening, families are choosing when they buy their big basket of things that they need all the time to look for value. Many of them are coming to us for those big food and consumables baskets, and then they’re being selective on general merchandise.”  ... ' 

Google's Beacons: Eddystone

More movement towards proximity and location engagement methods.  Apparently more Open Source as well.  More vendors in this space should increase exposure to the idea.

Google Rolls Out Its Version of Beacon Technology
Eddystone Is Meant to Compete With Apple's iBeacon

Google is stepping up efforts against Apple's location technology with new tools to link smartphones to nearby objects.

The search giant on Tuesday introduced a new format called Eddystone that lets electronic beacons provide more specific locations and other information within applications, the company said in a blog post. The tools, which compete with Apple's iBeacon technology, will enable smartphone users at a museum, for example, to get more information on a painting they're looking at or to gain easy access to electronic bus tickets when they're near a bus stop. ... " 

More from the Google Developers Blog.  and in Ars Technica.

And in the Wikipedia.

Pre Store and In-Store Brains

Sands Research is giving a webinar tomorrow at 2 PM EST  that I just learned about.  More about that here.  An example of what companies are trying to do today using neuromarketing methods in-store.  Will try to attend.  " ... The Pre-Store and In-Store Brain: Similarities and Differences You Can Leverage Across Points on the Path to Purchase ... " 

Tailoring Billboards

Onstar patents a system to tailor billboards to individual drivers:

" ... Like the billboards Tom Cruise encountered in Minority Report, the OnStar-linked ads would be tailored to passing motorists based on personal information they’d shared with their telematics service. Perusing the patent’s text, nightmare scenarios flooded our thoughts. Kids in the backseat? Be prepared to see ads for Happy Meals and nearby amusement parks. Headed to the doctor’s office? A friendly reminder to schedule a colonoscopy, in flashing 40-foot letters.

The most alarming aspect of the patent is how it proposes gathering personal data. Expectedly, the patent covers the use of location-based information from OnStar’s turn-by-turn navigation system. But more intrusively, it also includes the use of in-vehicle cameras to determine unspecified demographics of vehicle occupants. Even power seat positions could be used to estimate the age of a driver.... "