Page 57 - Demo

Chill out In the past 12 months, grocery shopper habits have changed considerably, including an apparent 45 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of households that ordered groceries online during 2020. With many of those shoppers choosing click-and-collect, retailers needed to find a way to meet demand at peak times, avoiding congestion and queues at collection points. A solution was found in the range of Smart Exchange Lockers available from retail display and refrigeration cabinet specialist Hussmann. Hussmann Commercial Director Oceania Gregory Malcolm tells Convenience World the Smart Exchange Lockers are being trialled by both major supermarket groups in 500 locations across Australia. “With 500 Smart Exchange Lockers currently in various stages of proof-of-concept trials, the feedback has been very positive." “As a business, we’ve been evolving rapidly since being acquired by Panasonic in 2016,” he said. “That gave us not only a great opportunity to focus on our core retail food sector business, but also the ability to be able to introduce new solutions suited to the changing demands of the food retail sector. “Some of those solutions have been related to our traditional showcases or digital merchandising products such as electronic shelf labels or video canopy LCD solutions, while the Smart Exchange Lockers being trialled have evolved from our expertise in food refrigeration. “What’s exciting about the lockers is they service not only on-premises, but also off-premises click-and-collect solutions, and are available 24 hours a day. “There’s currently a great deal of interest in the lockers from the social-distancing perspective, but the feedback is, after Covid, the convenience of a shopper being able to collect all their frozen, chilled and ambient temperature groceries from an on- or off-site locker solution at any time of day or night will make the lockers very popular indeed.” Hussmann offers a range of Smart Exchange Lockers, including two zone models with chilled and frozen compartments and three zone models with additional ambient temperature compartments. A range of sizes and configurations are available to suit location and demand, including off-site and outdoor locations permanently monitored by CCTV and motion activated lighting at night. “The process of using the refrigerated lockers is really very straightforward, starting when a customer places their online order,” Mr Malcolm said. “At that time, customers receive an access code and a diagram showing the layout of the lockers on site, with colour references to show where their allocated compartments are located. The compartments are also numbered. “In addition, anyone with a disability can flag their order so their allocated individual locker placements will be at a low level, simplifying access at time of collection. “With 500 Smart Exchange Lockers currently in various stages of proof-of-concept trials, the feedback has been very positive. “In particular, we’re finding that as customers become repeat users, they get used to the different compartment allocation and their collection time becomes significantly reduced, so I think the ease and convenience being offered with the locker experience is really worthwhile.” Count me in While off-site lockers can reduce in-store customer numbers when it’s busy, exceeding the maximum Covid social distancing capacity can, and does, happen, even with staff permanently positioned to monitor the customer flow. Smaller stores in particular risk being caught out, as they don’t have the resources to position staff members by entry and exit points continually keeping track of customer flow. To protect a business and its customers from getting fines potentially totalling many thousands of dollars, products such as People Counter from Retail Care are seen as viable solutions. Retail Care CEO Carlo Santoro says the People Counter system offers varying levels of sophistication, including the V-Count 3D Alpha+ with stereo vision technology claimed by People Counter to give a minimum 98 per cent counting accuracy rate, using the highest level of technology available in the people counting market. People Counter’s products can also display a store’s maximum occupancy recommendation, activate ‘Enter’ or ‘Not safe to enter’ signs based on real-time footfall, and send push notifications to alert managers when occupancy levels approach pre-determined thresholds. “We also have technologies using Bluetooth and wireless that allow us to not only record a count on entry or exit, but also determine that person’s gender and whether they’re an adult or a child,” Mr Santoro said. “We can even capture a mobile phone’s wi-fi MAC address, which gives us data such as customer dwell time and whether they’re a new or returning customer, both of which are considered valuable information for analysis.” For larger stores, options include heat mapping using fisheye lenses that can track customer-to-staff ratios throughout the day, enabling retailers to keep staff members protected against excessive customer exposure. Heat mapping also provides data on customer movements through a store, enabling analysis and insight into customer behaviour in busy and quiet areas to be used in future store and customer flow planning. “It’s important to understand our solutions don’t use closed circuit TV but rely on cameras with built-in firmware that creates anonymous code,” Mr Santoro said. “This ensures there are none of the data privacy concerns associated with many CCTV systems that transmit actual customer images across their networks.” TO PAGE 56 STORE EQUIPMENT JAN/FEB, 2021 CONVENIENCE WORLD 55