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As one of the industry\u2019s largest providers of retail technology, Aptos<\/strong> is intimately attuned to retailers\u2019 challenges and needs. This year at the company\u2019s series of Engage Direct retailer conferences, Aptos\u2019 VP of Strategy and Product Nikki Baird touched base with more than 60<\/strong> of those retailers to learn about their current technology priorities and pain points<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Baird sat down with Retail TouchPoints<\/em> to give us the inside scoop on the big themes that came out of those conversations, which paint a picture of where retail technology is headed, including:<\/p>\n Retail TouchPoints: So what were the biggest takeaways from Engage Direct?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Nikki Baird:<\/strong> Mobile in the store definitely seems to be a renewed focus area. It\u2019s kind of like RFID, because I feel like I\u2019ve said it so many times \u2014 \u201cNow they\u2019re finally<\/em> investing in mobile in the stores\u201d \u2014 but it does really feel like mobile is an impetus driving technology refresh in stores right now. Retailers want mobile to be more closely integrated into the role of the store employee and store manager. They have long complained about how Apple is a different kind of experience and that they can\u2019t be cash wrap-less [like Apple], and yet now I do see many rethinking and really shrinking down that cash wrap and wanting the store associate to be out in front of the cash wrap instead of behind it.<\/strong><\/p>\n I still see some analysts in the industry who distinguish between fixed-till versus mobile, and with tablet formats it really can be both. In fact, a lot of the drive behind mobile now is not employee productivity so much as it is reducing the hardware footprint in stores.<\/strong> They need fewer devices, and they need devices that can be multi-purpose. [With mobile you] can have a shared cash drawer [instead of] a big till that\u2019s a full tech stack of receipt printer, cash drawer, scanner and all those peripherals. And that does seem to be what\u2019s driving this renewed interest in [mobile tech] \u2014 that there\u2019s no distinguishing between fixed-till versus mobile, it\u2019s all the same devices.<\/p>\n One interesting thing that we\u2019ve seen come out of this interest is that Apple is winning the front of store and Android is winning the back of store.<\/strong> So when it comes to inventory management, rapid-scan receiving, cycle counts, even picking orders for omnichannel, the preferred format is that traditional retail-hardened Zebra<\/strong> kind of device. They like that for the back of store, but for the front of store, they like the Apple sleekness and the feel of that experience, especially when they\u2019re standing side by side with the customer.<\/p>\n And I will also say, we\u2019ve heard very strongly that the device management needs now are exponentially larger, and they haven\u2019t found a good solution for managing both Android and Apple.<\/strong><\/p>\n RTP: Does that mean you feel like retailers have to pick one or the other at this point?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> No, they are definitely forcing it through and saying, \u201cI\u2019m going to do Android in the back and I\u2019m going to do iOS in the front.\u201d What that forces on them is two<\/strong> mobile device management solutions, so one for the back of the store and one for the front, and it\u2019s not giving them a holistic picture of the store environment.<\/strong><\/p>\n I was actually amazed; we\u2019ve been trying to find partners that we can recommend to help [our clients since] we don\u2019t do mobile device management, but a lot of the hardware providers do. But if you buy HP tills, you get HP MDM [mobile device management], and if you buy Apple then Apple has partners they\u2019ll recommend, but it\u2019s not HP, because they compete.<\/p>\n They are putting a lot more intelligence into MDM, and it really would be a great benefit to the retailer to have that more holistic [front and back of store] view. [These MDM systems], for example, when you plug a device in, will run diagnostics to tell you if a device needs to be replaced or a battery is starting to fail. I\u2019ve seen systems where an employee will badge in to check out a phone or a tablet and it will tell them which tablet to use, so that they rotate through and aren\u2019t just using the first five<\/strong> devices. That way, the batteries get cycled and last longer. They also can send an alert, \u201cThis employee clocked out, but this device wasn\u2019t checked back in.\u201d<\/p>\n RTP: All that really speaks to the complexity of what retailers have to manage with this technology. Do you think the renewed interest in mobile systems also is being prompted by the growing prevalence of AI assistants for customers and associates?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen a whole range of enthusiasm. So on one level, there are the retailers who have a spaghetti approach \u2014 throw everything at the wall, see what sticks. They\u2019re still prioritizing things that are not risky necessarily, like the employee SOP [standard operating procedures] manual or the help documentation for their POS software, and making that something you can query in natural language and get answers back. Product recommendations also are kind of low-key risk. If you get it wrong, then they don\u2019t buy, but it\u2019s not like you\u2019ve exposed anybody\u2019s personal information.<\/p>\n I do think, especially when you get into customer data then we will see more of a push for a local model on a device and not sending that data over the cloud, even within a retailer\u2019s network.<\/strong> If you can have a local language model on the device, and you can have that interaction at the local level, then the security profile is much more manageable.<\/strong><\/p>\n RTP: It sounds like the security and privacy factors are increasingly top-of-mind.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> We\u2019re in compliance training season, and I\u2019m taking the EU AI compliance training, and let me tell you, anything that uses consumer and personal information in the EU is going to be a constraint.<\/strong> We actually have some retailers that are instituting AI Approval councils. So the retailer is saying, \u201cIf you have an AI initiative, you have to put together what it is, what data it\u2019s using, how it\u2019s using that data and what kind of result it\u2019s going to return, and you have to submit it to the committee for review, and it has to be approved before you can go off and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n A lot of what\u2019s driving that is the concern over the EU compliance, as well as \u201csurveillance pricing,\u201d which is suddenly becoming a huge term, and personalized promotions. I do think it\u2019s going to slow down some of the [AI implementation], because they have to be careful of all of these new regulations that are going into effect and that really affect informed consent<\/strong> \u2014 in the EU if you\u2019re going to use consumer data for some kind of AI response, you have to inform them that you are doing that and give them the opportunity to opt out. Also, if there\u2019s anything that gets to the level of personal safety or is medical-related, there\u2019s a whole new class of regulation that comes into effect in the EU.<\/p>\n RTP: You mentioned RFID as another of those technologies that has seemed to have so much promise for so long that many in the industry have been waiting for RFID to have its moment. Is that moment here?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> What\u2019s really driving it this time around is omnichannel. Before, retailers were setting a safety stock level in their store so that they weren\u2019t promising something to an online customer that they didn\u2019t actually have. \u201cIf my store says I have five, I will say I have three, because one of them might be damaged or one of them might be walking around in a customer\u2019s cart.\u201d RFID gives that opportunity to know if an item is really available or not.<\/strong> And yes, it could still be fudged, it could be walking around in a customer\u2019s cart, but there\u2019s a much smaller risk. So that idea of knowing, down to the second, if I really have this item that I can promise a customer online seems to be what\u2019s driving [the increased uptake in RFID].<\/p>\n Also, a lot of the brand manufacturers have moved to RFID tagging at the source, which gives even multi-brand retailers the opportunity to participate.<\/strong> We have a client who\u2019s a multi-brand shoe retailer, and they said that 70%<\/strong> of their inventory shows up on their doorstep already tagged. At that point it\u2019s like, shouldn\u2019t we try to do something with it? Even if you can only do it with these brands, if I [as the retailer] can promise every single Nike<\/strong> shoe I have, I should try.<\/p>\n People assumed that you needed to have absolutely everything tagged before you could really get the benefits of RFID, and we\u2019re seeing now that that\u2019s not the case.<\/strong> You can build a business case even if you have partial tagging, because you can use the visibility that you have for the items that are tagged to justify the expense of tagging the rest of the items.<\/p>\n Then [other benefits] come in a really quick one-two punch: they tag everything, they put the readers in their stores \u2014 which have gotten a lot cheaper, so that\u2019s also helped \u2014 and then they say, \u201cOkay, now I can do the omnichannel stuff. What I really want is [to increase] the speed of checkout.\u201d So they go from inventory management to checkout experience really fast.<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s also been a lot of developments around<\/strong> loss prevention and integrated electronic article surveillance (EAS) <\/strong>with RFID that have gotten interest from retailers. So you can have that EAS now without having to have the big clunky tag that has a battery in it. You can do it with a regular NSC-chip RFID tag. And it gives them other advantages; for example, if the consumer returns an item and the tag is still attached, they can just reactivate that same tag, so it cuts the cost of maintenance a lot.<\/p>\n RTP: Every time somebody talks to me about RFID I always end up wondering why everybody isn\u2019t using it, Is it really expensive to institute?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> It\u2019s like a cult. I hate to describe it that way, but it\u2019s true. If have a room with 50%<\/strong> of people who use RFID and 50%<\/strong> who don\u2019t, the 50%<\/strong> who are using it, they drank the Kool Aid and they are trying to get the other 50%<\/strong> to drink it. And that other half are like, \u201cI don\u2019t believe that you\u2019re getting those benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost like you have to experience it before you really see how it is a different world.<\/strong> That\u2019s the biggest barrier, but as we get more people who have come from an RFID environment and move to retailers that aren\u2019t doing it, they\u2019re really pushing it to where it\u2019s almost spreading organically.<\/p>\n RTP: You mentioned that the cost of the readers has gone down. Has the cost of the RFID tags come down as well?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> It has come down, but honestly at this point the business case is not about the tags themselves. It\u2019s about the readers and the kind of coverage you get in the store.<\/p>\n A lot of [the expense] comes from the retrofit of the store. If the store wasn\u2019t designed for RFID, then the retrofit can be expensive. But we had a lot of retailers who remodeled for omnichannel to better support pickup in-store or fulfillment from the store, and when they did that, some of them were thinking about how to wire the store better, have more access to power, have more WiFi access points.<\/strong><\/p>\n RTP: What have you been hearing from the back-to-school trenches, and do you think retailers should be planning similar strategies for holiday \u2014 or will they need a different approach?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Baird:<\/strong> There will need to be a different approach [for holiday]. What we saw from our surveys was consumers saying, \u201cI\u2019m going to cut back specifically to preserve back-to-school<\/strong> spending, because I don\u2019t want my kids to feel the uncertainty. So I\u2019m not going to dine out, I\u2019m going to buy my kid\u2019s first-day outfit.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s definitely a cautionary note. When it comes to holiday, there\u2019s a lot more pressure to travel, and so that balance of, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go see grandma for Christmas, so it\u2019ll be a smaller Christmas this year,\u201d that will be a [bigger possibility for holiday] than what we\u2019re seeing for back-to-school.<\/p>\n Then you combine that with the fact that retailers are all saying they\u2019re at the end of protecting consumers from price increases<\/strong>. We\u2019re at a point now where, if you haven\u2019t brought in your Christmas inventory, you really are risking that you\u2019re going to face tariffs when that Christmas inventory lands.<\/strong> So that, combined with the fact that consumers are really under pressure, and they\u2019re starting to make different choices \u2014 it\u2019s all going to run into each other.<\/p>\n Honestly, it will really just depend on how wealthy consumers feel \u2014 that depends on house prices, labor market, wages.<\/strong> And on the other side, it will depend on whether retailers were successful in bringing in enough holiday inventory before tariffs [were too high] so that they can offer good prices and good availability. Those are the two ingredients that we need to have a good holiday season.<\/p>\n One thing I will say though is that it does seem like everybody is adjusting to the new level of uncertainty.<\/strong> It\u2019s exhausting, but at some point you get numb to it and just say, \u201cThis is the world we live in. This is the world we have to function in.\u201d And we are seeing signs of retailers adapting to that with things like, for example, technology purchases or investments that they put a freeze on \u2014 those are starting to thaw out. It\u2019s not because there\u2019s any clearness in what\u2019s going to happen next; it\u2019s more like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to get on with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Nikki](\"https:\/\/www.retailtouchpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1516234002261.jpg\")
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