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. Retail Asia September/October 2018 37