Retail Asia 2018 RA September.October 2018 (Online) | Page 39
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY
Origami goes
global
CASHLESS payment provider Origami
announced in September, that it will
be expanding its mobile payment
service Origami Pay beyond Japanese
borders through a new international
partnership.
As a result of the capital and
business alliances with UnionPay
International (UPI), Origami Pay will,
by the first quarter of next year, be
accepted at approximately 7.5 million
UnionPay QR code-enabled outlets in
24 countries across Asia-Pacific, North
America, Central Asia, Middle East and
Africa.
Domestically, UnionPay’s QR
payments will also be made available at
Origami’s Japanese partner shops. The
alliance with UPI, allows both Japanese
users travelling abroad and inbound
users visiting Japan to make secure and
convenient payments at a wide range of
shops without worrying about currency
exchange.
In addition, Origami will be
partnering with Taiwan’s payment
service, Jko Pay of Jkos Network,
enabling Jko Pay users to make
payments at all Origami partner shops
in Japan. The company said that this
means Taiwanese visitors will not have
to worry about cross-border credit
card transaction fees when spending in
Japan, making payments directly from
their homegrown Jko Pay app.
Moving forward, Origami said it
will continue to expand its inbound
services through international
partnerships. The Japanese firm also
shared that it has secured series C
investment jointly from SBI Investment,
Toyota Finance, Shinkin Central
Bank, Union Pay International, Credit
Saison, Nihon Unisys, JCB, The Ogaki
Kyoritsu Bank, Mitsui Sumitomo
Card Company, DG Lab Fund (run by
Daiwa Ventures) and more.
The new investment from Series
C totalling US$66.6 million (US$88
million including previous rounds)
enables Origami to continue hiring
global talent, strengthening product
development and business expansion
across multiple verticals. ra
Do more with data
“RETAILERS have to harness the
data that are already recorded and
collected within the retail world,”
said Dr Farouk Abdullah, chief data
scientist and country head (Malaysia
and Singapore), Natural Intelligence
Solutions. Speaking to Retail Asia on
the sidelines of the recent Experiential
Marketing Summit in Singapore, he
explained that retailers today are facing
increasing competition from online
players, along with the perception of
service from customers.
Specifically, retailers need to
understand the type of data they have.
He said: “Retailers usually have a large
amount of data that they don’t know
that they are collecting. Anything from
transactional data, the stock keeping
units (SKUs) to inventory, right down
to who are coming into their shops.”
He shared an example of a grocery
retailer that leveraged data to discover
what and when customers are buying,
along with the combination of
items. The data allowed the team to
understand product placement and at
which points of the day should they sell
certain types and amount of items, and
which products can be offered together
at a discounted rate.
“Even from those three or four data
points, we were able to identify where
they should place the products that
customers buy regularly, and at which
time of day the retailer should stock up
on products and services. It then lends
itself to insights such as what does your
workforce management look like and
how many staff do you need at any one
point,” he elaborated.
The data also helped with inventory
control to determine when deliveries
need to happen, and as the retailer had
several branches, cross-shop inventory
also proved to be useful. Dr Farouk
revealed that this exercise has increased
the revenue and the gross margin of
the retailer, primarily because it does
not have to carry as much stock as it
thought it had to.
This example is just a tip of the
iceberg of how retailers can turn data
into actionable insights as the future
of data analytics has more to offer. For
example, the current buzzword in the
industry is facial recognition point-
of-sale (POS) systems, according to
Dr Farouk. Luxury retailers use it to
identify their repeat customers and
allow retail assistants to have easy access
to their spending records at the store
or brand. For smaller retailers, it helps
them to know what promotions and
products to surface to the customers
based on their previous purchases.
He added that retailers are also
moving towards doing away with
checkouts (as seen with Amazon's
checkout-free grocery store) and
implementing portable POS systems
where customers can approach a retail
employee to makes payment on the
spot without needing large checkout
counters in the store.
Known as an industry thought
leader and advisor to CEOs, Dr Farouk
has more than 15 years of first-hand
experience of establishing analytics
teams and delivering trusted insights in
large Financial Times Stock Exchange
(FTSE) 500 companies in the UK. ra
The awareness of data, analytics and data science can help retailers in many ways.
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