Thanks to TIBCO exec Murat Somnez for pointing out this WSJ article on retailer (and TIBCO customer) JC Penney and their exploitation of IT to:
- integrate social media sites and targeted promotions
- provide a unified view of customers across “bricks and mortar” and e-commerce outlets
- use RFID in supply chain to improve stock level operational visibility
In particular: “Within the next 18 months, Penney shoppers will be able to receive location-specific promotions on their mobile devices when they walk into a store. They’ll also be able to get deals and see product reviews in stores by taking pictures of bar codes with their phones.”
Nice to see further exploitation of event processing in the mainstream, and it will be interesting to see how retailers improve the overall “shopping experience” by extending sensory inputs from just standard shop displays to include smartphone channels. Indeed, optimising the information passed on to shoppers across multiple channels and locations in stores (yet avoiding sensory overload!) is probably going to keep their retail psychologists busy too!
