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RFID Tags For The Rich
Greedo writes "While reading this piece about designing 'experiences' in the Globe and Mail, I came across this interesting tidbit: If you're a frequent Prada shopper (and who on /. isn't?), the loyalty card in your wallet or purse contains a RFID tag that announces your arrival in the store. When you encounter a saleswoman, her handheld computer brings up your tastes, buying history, vital statistics and personalized suggestions from in-stock and coming inventory; the handhelds also place orders and book change rooms. Every item for sale bears an RFID tag. The RFID tags are courtesy of IDEO, and their website has a nice write-up of all the RFID-powered stuff at Prada, including the changeroom! I'm guessing this isn't coming to Wal*Mart's changerooms when they implement RFID. (Another write-up can be found here.)"
Yet another attempt to add the personal touch to the cold world of business.
I'm not trying to flamebait, just make an observation. The days of going to your friendly local are over, and now the store assistants don't even need to think or recognise, they simply wrap digital information in comforting words and give you a nice smile.
Some people seem to think anything RFID has to be bad. This proves that doesn't have to be the case. These folks are open about the use of the RFIDs and they use it to provide real value to the customer. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
Compare/contrast to Wal-Mart which isn't open about the use of RFIDs and doesn't give the customer anything of value when they're installed. Since the customer knows nothing about the RFIDs, they don't have real choice in whether they want "to participate" in potentially privacy invading information gathering. Prada, by being open about the tags, alows the customer to simply shop somewhere else if they don't like them.
TW
...part of me says, who cares?
Yes yes, I see the privacy concerns. But on the other hand, people in stores currently aren't exactly trying to remember who you are and what you like. If they have a palm whatever to give them a better understanding of your tastes, they can be far more helpful in less time.
Getting past the personal buying history, however, those dressing rooms are certainly okay in my book. I like the idea of tags in the clothing displaying information on a screen, and come on... that "magic mirror" would make trying on clothing so much more enjoyable an experience. (At least, for those of us who actually care enough to put some effort in the way we dress.)
The frequent Prada shopper does not just shop in one city. They will expect the same level of 'courteous' service in New York, Paris, Los Angeles, and perhaps Milan; these RFID tags will give it to them.
It's not all that bad of an idea. I suspect that these shoppers will not be plagued with advertisements or other spam; they are rich, after all, and not the average dime-a-dozen consumer. The advertisers will be desperate not to offend them.
==============
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I think the very wealthy send personal shoppers to stores and accept/reject the new clothing in their own homes.
And that's for ready-to-wear. For tailored stuff (and who isn't rich and wearing custom tailored suits?), the tailor or his sizing rep comes to your house and measures you, shows fabric samples, and then comes back with finished clothes for final fitting.
Actually going to a store and having to disrobe in a changing room, interact with other people and have strangers around you isn't what people with real money do. There may be some stores that are far from home or impractical for personal shoppers, so in that case, you pack up your entourage, rent a few suites at the Plaza and have stuff brought to your room.
As was I. All of the scenes from MR that showed advertisments blaring out to passerby, recommending personalized buying suggestions and hurling sales pitches pell mell filled me with horror. After the movie was over, I looked over at my wife and said, "When that happens, we're moving to a fucking log cabin on the Blue Ridge."
Of course, said cabin would be complete with a cutting edge solar/microhydroelectric power system, sattelite Internet Access, etc. My wife is always mystified by the fact that I can peck away at my computers day in and day out, steeping myself in technology, but when it comes to commercial enterprise I run screaming from anything that threatens to invade my mental environment. I don't see any inconsistency there, but hey, YMMV.
Don't Panic!
The connection there is real. Now people aim to replace that with a wire in a piece of plastic, just as they're replacing living wage jobs with permatemp spots or part time people working close to full time schedules. If you think the negative part of this story is RFID, which is just brand new fuel for the paranoid that'll in actual practice do more to save money than invade privacy, think again; it's about subjugating another fulfilling business practice to a cookie-cutter scheme that anybody who can fog a mirror can perform.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Problem with that being if your CC on file is attached your VIP card, then anyone warshopping can sniff your ID and rebroadcast, grabbing up items and having them charged to your account.
I'm all for more user personalization, this is really no different from what Amazon does, except in a brick-and-mortar. As long as I can remove the RFID tag when I get home I'm good to go.
El riesgo vive siempre!
True about the waitress comment GigsVT.
I think what bothers people about this is that the waitress actually takes the time to remember what you like/dislike which people like because it makes you feel like someone cares.
It would sound pretty fake (and make me less likely to shop there again) if I walked into the a franchise store in a city where I've never been and the salesperson would come over and talk to me as if we are old friends.
Will this lead to people who are targeted as big spenders to get better service because of their past spending sprees? who knows...
one thing is for sure though, it's coming to stores near you...
l8r
> You don't hear people complaining when their waitress remembers what they like to drink...
I would if she wrote it down and faxed it to every other store that paid her a buck for the info.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Small, isolated? Try 1 block from downtown financial center. Not a high-end clothes shop, either. No sir- a deli.
I started stopping there for a egg/bacon/cheese bagel, and on the second day- the woman looked at me and said "egg bacon cheese bagel, and an OJ, right?" Third day, i got a warm greeting and I knew she still remembered. This isn't a small place- it's directly across from South Station, and opposite One Financial Center. A lot of construction-guy types from the Big Dig and area renovation go there, as do limo drivers and local/state cops. The place is almost always bustling, and I've seen other customers get the same recognition.
All of this just goes to show that if you want to be successful, it's all about establishing a relationship with the customer, and that's the job of the sales person. It can't be automated, because if the customer sniffs that- they suddenly realize they're just a sheep of hundreds and they're not impressed in the slightest beyond the gee-gaw gadgetry of it all.
Who do you think will establish more long-term relationships at a high-end clothier- the salesperson with this palm thingy who does the in-person version of "let me pull up your records", or the salesperson who turns around, recognizes an important customer, and says, "Ah, Mr. Jones! Good to see you again. How did the alterations work on your dinner jacket?"
Please help metamoderate.
What if significant numbers of people could be induced to (unwittingly) ingest RFID chips? We could scan pedestrian traffic choke-points for consumers of anything that is swallowed whole - club drugs, over the counter pharmaceuticals, happy hour tacos... The mind reels.
RFID tags are cool and all, and I think they're destined to have a lot of great apps, but this is NOT one of them.
Never mind the privacy concerns, lots of people will take up that charge. Stores will end up doing custom pricing with this. Wouldn't be hard to say, "Hey, this guy bought a big screen TV last time... when he checks this price, it'll be full retail". Of course, they might offer a discount at times, but I seriously doubt it.
Another thing, the last thing I want to do is to have to chase down a salesperson to find an item just because they're glad-handing a previous customer. Worse, I don't want salespeople slithering up and acting like a best friend just because they happen to have your info.
If you're a Gates or a Getty and you walk into the Prada store, you'll expect damn good service with or without an RFID tag. Stores with massive margins don't need technology; they need fawning, supplicant employees who can flatter customers into coughing up $6000 for a handbag.
You do not need to decrypt a signal that you can repeat. i.e. I can say "Bonjour" without knowing a lick of French, or even the literal meaning of that phrase.
Now, if there was some kind of challenge-response going on, it would be much harder to deal with, although not impossible, given enough "captures".
The previous sig has been removed due to
When "the people" don't like RFID, they decide to use class envy to get them to change their minds.
Instead of being something that can be used to track us and invade our privacy, they'll frame RFID as a perk that only the rich deserve. This'll make people DEMAND it in everything.
Not for me, thanks anyway.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Store clerks remembered who you were and got to know you on a personal basis, and could do everything this RFID stuff enables total strangers to do for you now. But times have changed and people don't stay in the same job for 40 years and people don't shop at the same place or even live in the same city their whole lives. When that changed, people bemoaned how alienating modernity was.
Maybe this will start to change now that we have high tech eyes watching our every move.
But... it's just off-putting that someone you don't know well has all this information about you. I don't care really if my tailor of some decades of acquaintance knows some personal details about me, like my left leg is shorter than my right leg. I worry, though, when that information get collected into a big system and combined with all sorts of other information from who knows where.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Technically, the shark with the frickin' laser on its head would be slightly more accurate...
When you have dozens of people crossing the line in any given second like you do in many large road races where they use these chips, it is much more accurate than you could get with a laser, because people will often cross the line before the previous finisher is completely over the line, making line of sight based techniques hard to use, it is also a very easy method of associating a number (and therefor a person) with each finisher, and the order they finished in.
You would never use one of these in a track event where hundreths of a second count and there are few enough compeditors that you can "just watch" for the order...
TamMan2000 - Marathoner, Triathlete, wearer of many championchips
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Not so. In fact I'm a capitalist myself. I have to be to maintain my "poor" lifestyle, as I'm no "survivalist."
For instance, I may make my own clothes but I do not make my own fabric. That, on the whole, is robotic meanial labor better done by a machine than some poor bastard of a worker who's going to die from breathing cotton fibers all his short, miserable life.
That machine requires capital which must be recovered through sales. So I produce some extra food, sell it, and buy my cloth.
Or I fix someone's computer. My skills are high tech as well as low. I'm no Luddite either.
I assembled my own computer, but I certainly didn't make the cpu. I bought it. Time-Warner has expended a good deal of capital, and continues to do so, so that I may connect to the internet. I pay them for my connection. Nothing wrong with that.
I built my bicycle frame, but I certainly didn't make the tubing. Reynolds can do that far better than I could ever hope to dream of doing it. Nor did I make my welding torch.
No, capitalism isn't harmed by my way of life, although it destroys markets like Prada's, those markets that exist to charge $100 for something that can be had for $20.
Top down heirarchy is.
Yes, then most of the rich wouldn't be quite so rich.
KFG
4a) Start dressing in style and get laid more
/.ers to get laid....
Ummm, I don't think ANY amount of fine clothes will help most
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
First of all you don't entirely need them. I already know for a fact that you read stories on slashdot about RFID tags! I can also surmise that a few of the posters are buying more tinfoil than they would normally need.
RFIDS? What do you think cookies are? The concept of RFIDs has efectively been on the net for years. And for you tinfoil hat ppl: They have been monitoring us liek rats for years... people have been taken, things have been done to them, now there walking gap advertisements...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
If you lived in a small, isolated, town, the shopkeepers there would know far more about you than these corporations will ever be able to milk from audit trails.
If you lived in a small, isolated, town, you would likely know as much about the shopkeeper as he knows about you.
And having lived in a small, but not so isolated town, I can say there is a much higher level of comfort and trust when you've known the local "Dusty Roads" storekeeper as your best friend's granddad than when the salesclone at Prada in SF knows what you bought last week in NY.
I wonder how long it will be before the Department of Homeland Security is given access to all of these records. You can never bee too sure if that guy buying stockings is really a transvestite! He just might be a terrorist looking for a more stylish mask!
Read, L
I've accidently discovered the secret to getting service while dressed like a slob.. (And I wouldn't call myself rich)
Basically, be an arrogant yet superficially polite jerk. This includes:
Appear to be bored
Poke gently at the merchandise (as though it might be soiled), while making little sniffs and raising one eyebrow in amused disgust
Make little "tch tch" noises, and sigh occasionaly.
Hold the merchandise at arms length, tip head back slightly, furrow your brows, squint a little and peer at it as though it was a dead badger.
Talk in a loud tone of voice
Aproach the salespeople directly, at high speed, and say "Can you help me please" in a firm and loud tone of voice"
Say "Do you have anything a little nicer than this"
Say "Mmm, this isn't quite, is it."
The end result of all this, in my amazed and incredulous experience, is that I am mistaken for someone incredibly important, while all I am doing is acting self-important.
I think the salespeople in these places respond positivly to contempt and arrogance, and despise timidity, humility, and any indication that the customer is in awe of their surroundings.
Are you listening to yourself? You write as though the object of Prada opening a store is to keep lowlifes out of it.
Prada is in business to make money. If they're smart (and they seem to be), they'll do what's best for business. This includes profiling customers to focus attention on steady high rollers. But if a salesperson sees you in Levi's and Hanes, but their handheld tells them that you bought two handbags and a set of luggage last month, I don't think you'll be spurned.
Prada does not make money by kicking non-disruptive people out of stores. Let's look at this like what it is; an attempt to improve service, as well as get good publicity.
-- Hamster