Association for Retail Technology Standards

In the second of a two-part interview, GlobeSt.com talked to ARTS executive director Richard Mader about the effects technology has had on retail and the progress the group is having creating standards to keep up with it.

GlobeSt.com: How have retail technologies changed since ARTS was founded in 1993? How are these changes impacting the need for technology standards?

Mader: In 1993, new, smaller computers were enabling retailers to implement store level applications. Servers and desktops were not common terms, DOS was the only PC operating system and the Internet was confined to colleges and the government. The first ARTS standards Data Model and UnifiedPOS enabled retailers to choose applications such as price lookup, layaway, ticket printing, etc. for vendors other than their POS provider and to purchase MSR, check readers, customer displays and other devices from a variety of vendors. Also in 1993 most retailers developed their own application for operation on a central host computer.

Today the Internet is everywhere, and it is based on open standards. Most applications are purchased and need to be integrated with applications from other vendors. The Internet and open systems proved that standards worked and are reliable. Integration became the most expensive part of IT projects, so the ARTS Data Model and particularly our 17 XML schemas to link applications are very much in demand.

GlobeSt.com: In January, ARTS announced the release of version 6.0 of the standard Retail Data Model, along with an accompanying Data Dictionary. I understand this version was in development about two years and included more than 100 enhancements. What would you describe as the most important changes in this model of the standard?

Mader: There are a number of them:

  • Transaction Taxes: Enhanced support for transaction taxes, addressing a wider variety of retail transaction taxes, levies, and fees, along with greater support for the flexible configuration of taxes, tax rules, tax authorities and jurisdictions;
  • Tax Registrations and Certificates: Enhanced support for the recording of tax registrations and certificates;
  • Person data: Enhanced support for internationalization and localization of personal data, plus more flexibility in tracking birth date information;
  • Commissions: Enhanced support for Commission Plans
  • Price Modifications: Ability to both increase and decrease the price of an item via a promotion or price adjustment;
  • Merchandise Group / Buyers: Ability to support multiple buyer responsibilities for merchandise groups;
  • Shipment tracking: Greater support for tracking estimated and actual shipping information;
  • Customer Verification: Expanded support for newer techniques for customer verification during tender;
  • Manual Discounts and Price Modifications: Added the ability to support manual price modifications at the retail transaction line level;
  • Geo Coordinates: Expanded the ability to support multiple geo-coordinate systems and map coordinates to physical addresses (Geocoding);
  • Loyalty Programs: Enhanced support for newer loyalty reward card types and expanded loyalty award tracking;
  • International Currency: Extended money-related attributes to better support international currency requirements;
  • Gift Certificates: Enhanced support for new media types of gift certificates, plus extended tracking of balance amounts.

These enhanced or new features show that ARTS remains current with industry trends. Take geo coordinates: today people find store locations via tracking systems. Loyalty programs and gift certificates are business formats growing all around the world. Having said that, 48% of ARTS members are from outside US, so we need support for international currency.

GlobeSt.com: What role do you expect data standards to play for retailers in the future?

Mader: Standard data and networks are going to allow anyone with a cell phone to shop anywhere, find the complete item description on one certified site, and pay with credit, debit, loyalty points and electronic coupons. Some say standard business process will be linked together on the Internet to create applications because of standard meta data and connectors.

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