Get in listener, we’re going shopping… with the latest episode of the CORDIScovery podcast!
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #3 - The new synergies for shopping
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:17:00
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:17:02 - 00:00:37:08
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of the CORDIScovery podcast with me, Abigail Acton. Shuttered windows, closed shopping centers. Our high streets are feeling the brunt of the coronavirus crisis. Businesses which relied entirely on their bricks and mortar presence have had to scramble to get their shops online or face a total collapse of income, holding out if they can for a footfall to return to our streets.
00:00:37:10 - 00:00:59:20
Abigail Acton
Food sellers have been faced with the logistical challenge of getting perishable goods out to customers unable or unwilling to come to supermarkets for the weekly shop. All this pressure on a sector that has already had to rethink its model in the face of competition from online giants and a pre-pandemic drift to e-commerce. Is retail just one other industry facing a fundamental shift to the way it will operate in a post-Covid world?
00:00:59:22 - 00:01:19:13
Abigail Acton
Will people flock back to the shops? Some have saved money during the crisis. Those able to work from home but not able to spend on holidays, events or leisure. How will our shops entice them in? In an increasingly cashless society, does our dependance on paying by card make us vulnerable to fraud? Buying at a distance means returning more goods.
00:01:19:15 - 00:01:23:09
Abigail Acton
How can the economic and environmental impact of that be mitigated?
00:01:25:23 - 00:01:53:12
Abigail Acton
Perhaps our three guests whose work was supported by the EU's horizon 2020 program, have some answers. A warm welcome to Frank Sandeloev CEO of CardLab Innovation, who has been an electronic warfare officer in the Danish Army, an airline captain and a biometric expert for the International Air Transport Association. Frank has a keen interest in cyber security, fraud prevention and unique biometric user identification, with a focus on privacy protection.
00:01:53:14 - 00:01:57:09
Abigail Acton
He was the co-ordinator of the QuardCard Project. Hello, Frank.
00:01:57:11 - 00:01:59:16
Frank Sandeloev
Oh, thanks for having me here.
00:01:59:18 - 00:02:20:18
Abigail Acton
Daphne Pijnappel a B2B marketeer, at BuyBay a business that combats the waste in e-commerce by processing and reselling returned products. And Overstock is interested in everything related to retail and sustainability. She is responsible for marketing with a focus on business development and process optimization. Daphne was involved in the SMILE project. Hello, Daphne. Welcome.
00:02:20:19 - 00:02:22:18
Daphne Pijnappel
Hi Abigail.
00:02:22:20 - 00:02:43:05
Abigail Acton
Dr Mary Ellen Foster is a senior lecturer in human robot interaction at the University of Glasgow. Her research is in the area of social robotics, developing robots that are enabled to engage in face to face conversation with human partners, and then exploring how people react to those robots in a range of public spaces. Mary Ellen was the coordinator of the MuMMER project.
00:02:43:07 - 00:02:44:07
Abigail Acton
Good morning, Mary Ellen.
00:02:44:13 - 00:02:46:03
Mary Ellen Foster
Hi. It's nice to talk to you today.
00:02:46:05 - 00:03:08:08
Abigail Acton
Very welcome, all of you. The Abel Prize, which honors achievements in mathematics, has just been awarded to Israeli Avi Widget and Hungarian Laszlo Lavash for their contributions to computer security. Security and its connection to digital activity is clearly under the spotlight. Certainly, current trends make the work done by the QuardCard project more relevant than ever. So, Frank, if I can turn to you first.
00:03:08:10 - 00:03:19:05
Abigail Acton
For the past year, online retail has seen a real boom, and those shopping in supermarkets and other essential stores have turned to cashless payments. Do these shifts leave people more exposed to fraud?
00:03:19:09 - 00:03:41:17
Frank Sandeloev
Unfortunately, this story tells yes that is the truth. What we see now is that the criminal activities they follow, the money and stay the money are digital and they are in data. That's where you got the real value. So we see and cyber security concern from outside that needs to be mitigated. We see a rise in identity theft.
00:03:41:19 - 00:04:02:18
Frank Sandeloev
That means you can lose your personal data, but also you have financial data. We see hacking of, e-commerce sites, which again exposes both the merchants and also the user. And we also see, just like fraud is on the rise. And one thing is that hackers are really active today. By the way, you could buy into the lottery.
00:04:02:18 - 00:04:24:08
Frank Sandeloev
You can buy up to 10,000 Indian users. And probably there's some in between and got active data that has value. That's one. And then we see passwords because you have to date a number of passwords an average of 40 and 45. You have to remember. That means we are becoming lazy. We have to remember the same words. We put the same in the same place.
00:04:24:10 - 00:04:35:08
Frank Sandeloev
And that means hacking computers. If you hack one site, you will get access to a lot of stuff. So yes, people are absolutely becoming more vulnerable, but that's what we need to look at.
00:04:35:10 - 00:04:40:20
Abigail Acton
And how is Court Card been trying to make shopping on the use of credit cards safer?
00:04:40:21 - 00:05:04:02
Frank Sandeloev
What we have done is create the biometric payment card, but it also works for a lot of other stuff. But that gives you the ability to control your own data. It stays in the cards you control it by. Your fingerprint enables you to have a higher payment limit due to privacy protection. It also gives you 100% certainty that you are the one you claim to be.
00:05:04:07 - 00:05:09:08
Frank Sandeloev
And that works the other way around. You as a merchant would also like to know who you're dealing with.
00:05:09:12 - 00:05:19:11
Abigail Acton
Can I stop you for a second? I'm curious. So you. If you say it reads fingerprints, but if you're buying online, talk me through it. I go to somewhere, I decide to buy online. How would I use your card?
00:05:19:17 - 00:05:48:06
Frank Sandeloev
What do we do when you're on the online event? Is that we have the card. We have a back end identification solution. So when you identify yourself on the card, the card turns you into a token where you can use online. That means your true identity is not visible to men in the military or anybody else on the internet, except for those who need to know who you are and that gives you a lot more certainty that we can eliminate online fraud, which is today is a big hassle.
00:05:48:08 - 00:05:57:15
Abigail Acton
Okay, so each time you use the card, you become, a different identity, almost because of the token that represents who you are changes with each of your interactions.
00:05:57:20 - 00:06:02:02
Frank Sandeloev
Yeah. And if somebody tries to use your token, it's already been used to be rejected.
00:06:02:04 - 00:06:04:09
Abigail Acton
Right? It's expired because it's one time only.
00:06:04:11 - 00:06:05:18
Frank Sandeloev
Exactly.
00:06:05:20 - 00:06:13:23
Abigail Acton
So if I was in a retail environment, bricks and mortar, when we do eventually go back into our shops, as I'm sure we will. How does that work, then?
00:06:13:24 - 00:06:34:03
Frank Sandeloev
That works exactly in the same way, because we can do the same level of security. The token would pass by the point of sale. Or you could do it in. Yeah. The first step is that you identify yourself by digitally. That can be done, let's say on the first level security, the second level maximum security is tokenizing your identity.
00:06:34:08 - 00:06:39:21
Frank Sandeloev
And then we use it with the new psd2 where you authorize what it is that you're doing online.
00:06:39:21 - 00:06:42:09
Abigail Acton
Sorry, what is a psd2. So you just mentioned.
00:06:42:11 - 00:07:08:06
Frank Sandeloev
You two is a payment service directive issued by the EU. But what is two, two and a half years ago, where you actually verify your payment today, you also online receive an SMS. You have to verify who you are with a, biometric card. You can get rid of all that hassle waiting for the service and make sure you're online, etc. you do everything on the card and as it's offline, there's nobody else being able to look at what you're doing.
00:07:08:08 - 00:07:11:18
Frank Sandeloev
So the hackers have been excluded from you. Environment.
00:07:11:22 - 00:07:13:22
Abigail Acton
Perfect. Like a bubble. Like a protective bubble.
00:07:14:01 - 00:07:16:12
Frank Sandeloev
Exactly. And if you cannot see it, you cannot hack it.
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:31:06
Abigail Acton
Right? Right. Perfect. And are credit cards interested? Because this is sounds a little bit like disruptive technology. The notion of having to have a way of reading the fingerprint that's integrated into the card itself. Are credit card companies interested in taking up this idea?
00:07:31:07 - 00:07:52:06
Frank Sandeloev
There's, we actually got accepted by the Mastercard lighthouse program. They wanted to put us on because they're working on cryptos. They're working on, let's say, the future of payment. They're working on smart city solutions as well. And what they also know is the cyber security is a major part of major problem that needs to be solved here.
00:07:52:08 - 00:08:07:04
Frank Sandeloev
So we in this program together with potentially a number of partners, and we also have other companies, fintech companies around the world plugging into our solutions, cryptocurrencies, etc.. So there's a huge interest in it.
00:08:07:06 - 00:08:17:05
Abigail Acton
So it might be possible that we would be carrying one of these cards in our wallets at some point in the near future or mid future or long term, more or less.
00:08:17:07 - 00:08:21:13
Frank Sandeloev
According to the mid-future Okay. That would be a ramp up process across.
00:08:21:13 - 00:08:22:00
Abigail Acton
Yes.
00:08:22:04 - 00:08:32:22
Frank Sandeloev
And that would be the legislation that needs to be in place today. You got central database and so on. People need to know how vulnerable they are before they really start to invest in secure solutions.
00:08:33:01 - 00:08:39:12
Abigail Acton
Yes. And unfortunately we find out how vulnerable we are often when we when it's too late, shutting stable doors after horses are bolted, etc..
00:08:39:12 - 00:08:44:01
Frank Sandeloev
Yeah, yeah. We consider biometric causes more or less like buying an insurance, right?
00:08:44:03 - 00:08:50:21
Abigail Acton
Indeed. Very interesting. Thank you, Mary Ellen. Daphne, would you have any questions that you would like to put to Frank?
00:08:50:23 - 00:08:59:13
Mary Ellen Foster
I mean, I guess I'm just curious. I try to imagine what this would physically look like. Is it does it look basically like a, like a credit card that you would actually hold? It would fit in your wallet the same way a.
00:08:59:13 - 00:09:19:01
Frank Sandeloev
Normal one would? Exactly. It's got the same dimensions as a credit card, but it has the fingerprint sensor on, it has a display and has a lot of electronics inside. So just try to imagine the McDonald being pressed together to a point seven of a millimeter thickness. So it is normal credit card shape and it works in the existing infrastructure.
00:09:19:01 - 00:09:21:10
Frank Sandeloev
It works with whatever exists today.
00:09:21:12 - 00:09:42:13
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. That sounds excellent. And another thing, of course, is the the fact that we need to encourage people to return to retail bricks and mortar and any way that facilitates their payment systems. And of course, we become cashless with the pressure of the coronavirus crisis. So that also would be another use that I can see, being very popular.
00:09:42:15 - 00:10:00:15
Abigail Acton
Mary Ellen, if I could turn to you talking about trying to entice shoppers back, online, of course, has taken off and exploded. But how do you think we are going to be able to get people back into shops once they can actually go? How is your robotics, background and ideas helping with that, do you think?
00:10:00:16 - 00:10:17:17
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah. So what we did on the project that I coordinated was we took, a humanoid robot, and we put it into a shopping mall, basically beside the information desk. So there are, there are people in at the information desk who will tell you how to find the food court and where the toilets are and what the specials are today.
00:10:17:19 - 00:10:40:02
Mary Ellen Foster
And we figured that was kind of for our initial deployment. Anyway, here's a good use case for this robot to put it there. And it did. It did attract a lot of people's attention to that, that there was a robot that they could talk to. And I think, I mean, a big difference between I mean, one difference and Daphne's probably going to talk about this with bricks and mortar versus, online shopping is can you actually see and touch and feel the goods before you actually buy them?
00:10:40:04 - 00:10:50:11
Mary Ellen Foster
But another thing is just a whole sort of overall experience of being in a place maybe, maybe, you know, because we've shown we can do shopping without having to go anywhere. So there has to be some other reason to go to these.
00:10:50:11 - 00:10:52:06
Abigail Acton
Places, some sort of added value.
00:10:52:07 - 00:11:03:09
Mary Ellen Foster
Yes. Yeah. And you could sort of see robots like what we tried putting in there as kind of an added value. You go to the shop, you do all your shopping things, but you can also maybe have a conversation with a robot while you're there.
00:11:03:13 - 00:11:04:24
Abigail Acton
Which is always cool.
00:11:05:01 - 00:11:28:06
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah, I mean, it's cool. All of the people you've probably seen these robots in shops before, what tends to happen with some of quite a lot of the time is they do attract attention and people are like, wow, cool, the robot. And then it turns into essentially a kiosk. Once, once you've actually come up to the robot, it attracts people's attention, but then it essentially devolves into you're using it as a touchscreen or it does nothing.
00:11:28:08 - 00:11:43:12
Mary Ellen Foster
So what we did in summer was try to take that use case, take that people's interest in a robot, but try to make it actually able to have a conversation with because people want to have a conversation with these robots. But if the robot's not able to reply, then people will say, fine, okay, I'll just use a touch screen.
00:11:43:14 - 00:11:53:15
Mary Ellen Foster
So we try to make it able to engage in a bit of social conversation if people want to. As well as sort of directing them to the coffee shop. So that was a goal of what we were trying to do in this project.
00:11:53:15 - 00:12:11:09
Abigail Acton
Did you manage to move away from, from from gimmick to useful tool? I mention that because I came across a robot once in a hotel reception, I think it was Amsterdam and it was intriguing. But then all it could really do is tell me what the perspective weather forecast was, which I had multiple layers. Yeah.
00:12:11:10 - 00:12:34:02
Mary Ellen Foster
I mean, it's sort of a bit hard to come up with a use case where. But this was an use case where people do come to the information desk and ask for information. So we so we thought this is when we talked to them, we did some co-design work with, shop owners and the mall owners at the start of this project, and they sort of brainstormed all the things I thought the robot could do, things like carry your packages for you, things like provide security, like, now the robot we're using can't do these things.
00:12:34:02 - 00:12:50:02
Mary Ellen Foster
What this robot can do is talk and gesture. And so on. So we tried to think of a use case. It would actually be useful, because of the challenges of doing this, actually, you know, in a wide open space, the conversation did actually kind of end up being please tell me where the food court art is.
00:12:50:04 - 00:13:01:24
Mary Ellen Foster
Oh, it's over there. But instead of a bit more, we did some lab based testing as well. And it was able, if you wanted to chat about the weather or chat about movies, if you had to be, if you were in the mall and you wanted to spend a bit of time talking to somebody, it was capable of that.
00:13:01:24 - 00:13:16:23
Mary Ellen Foster
Not so much during the actual deployment in the mall for various technical reasons, but it is a use case that we think if you could get a bit more of people want to talk to a robot, people are really excited about a robot the first time it kind of fails, then they're like, okay, fine, whatever. I'll stop trying.
00:13:16:23 - 00:13:22:16
Mary Ellen Foster
So we want to avoid that moment of we want to sort of get it so that can have a social conversation with people.
00:13:22:18 - 00:13:22:22
Mary Ellen Foster
In.
00:13:22:22 - 00:13:23:23
Mary Ellen Foster
That sort of context.
00:13:24:00 - 00:13:35:10
Abigail Acton
Yeah, no. Absolutely fascinating. And of course, it's, you know, it's an initial foot in the water to see public engagement with the device as well. And so what was the feedback from the general public? Did they embrace it? What did you find out?
00:13:35:10 - 00:13:56:01
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah, I mean, people would talk to it, but I think we weren't able to detect for various privacy reasons whether people were coming back to it repeatedly. So we had we have a whole lot of one off interactions and people people started meet people, found it interesting. It attracted attention. I'm not sure that the interactions were quite what we told, but also because of the shopping mall where we put this was in Finland.
00:13:56:03 - 00:14:13:11
Mary Ellen Foster
So the robot had to speak in Finnish, which was a whole extra level of language processing challenge if we'd had it in an English speaking. Unfortunately, this is the reality of natural language processing right now. If we had it in an English speaking place, the speech recognition would probably have been better. So that added an additional challenge. But still people were positive about it.
00:14:13:11 - 00:14:24:21
Mary Ellen Foster
People enjoyed it. People found found it neat. They, you know, it just didn't do such a good job of understanding them. So maybe it didn't quite it wasn't quite as useful as we talk, but it was still a good proof of concept if we'd like to try to build it.
00:14:24:21 - 00:14:38:22
Abigail Acton
You sure? I mean, this is the thing. I mean, these things take that, you know, they develop over steps and stages. And so you've established that it has, something to offer and that people want to engage in it. I mean, if I see a robot, I want to engage with it. Absolutely. Yeah. What are your next steps?
00:14:38:22 - 00:14:40:22
Abigail Acton
Do you have, plans to to build on this?
00:14:40:22 - 00:15:03:10
Mary Ellen Foster
Well, well, the the project is finished now, certainly in Glasgow. My, my my particular research team. I've got a PhD student who's working right now to try to figure out how we could adapt this robot to be deployed in a museum and on campus at the University of Glasgow. So then we said we've tried to think about and there's sort of Glasgow specific issues to do with how do people want to interact and accents and things like that in Glasgow.
00:15:03:10 - 00:15:12:19
Mary Ellen Foster
So we tried to take this use case and try to deploy it in other public spaces in other contexts and sort of see how do people respond to it and how should the behavior maybe change for different deployment locations.
00:15:12:24 - 00:15:13:12
Abigail Acton
So absolutely.
00:15:13:12 - 00:15:22:22
Mary Ellen Foster
Fascinating. I know other project members are also trying to to explore deploying bits of the system in other contexts. But in Glasgow, that's our specific goal, is try to deploy it around Glasgow.
00:15:22:22 - 00:15:33:20
Abigail Acton
Oh, fascinating. Attempted to go and check it out when we can finally travel again. Absolutely. Do either of you, Frank and Daphne have a question for Mary Ellen Frank? Maybe something about the security focus.
00:15:33:22 - 00:15:53:08
Frank Sandeloev
You know, just very short, because I know there's a lot of work going into doing a job like this. And we all seen some of those movies where the soldiers are going around, some are being reprogramed by the wrong people. So, Well, I was just wondering, what are you doing in terms of projects? Because you actually work on an IoT device?
00:15:53:10 - 00:16:18:14
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah. I mean, I have to say, the security is not something we've thought about much up to this point in this space because it was more a matter of getting it working at all. But yes, this is an internet connected piece of hardware that's sitting out in public on a public Wi-Fi network. So yes, there are these are things we need to think about, because obviously there's issues now in kind of conversational systems in terms of systems learning to, you know, either learning to say bad things or behaving in bad ways.
00:16:18:14 - 00:16:32:21
Mary Ellen Foster
And even if we managed to program them so that they don't do those things, if we if there's somebody who kind of gets in as a you know, gives us new language model, so it'll behave in different ways. So putting robots in public spaces, that's not something we've thought about much yet, but it's definitely a thing we need to start thinking about.
00:16:32:21 - 00:16:35:20
Mary Ellen Foster
If we want to put these things out in the world more. So it's a good point.
00:16:36:00 - 00:16:39:16
Abigail Acton
Yeah, indeed. Daphne, did you have any questions for Mary Ellen or for Frank?
00:16:39:18 - 00:16:51:24
Daphne Pijnappel
Yeah, I was wondering, could it also replace, personnel in shops, like, instead of an employee that helps you with, checking the clothes or the products that a robot could do?
00:16:52:04 - 00:17:11:16
Mary Ellen Foster
Yes. For sure. Yes. It would maybe need to be a slightly different robot platform that was able to maybe grasp things. I robot wasn't very good at holding on to things, so we couldn't actually physically manipulate objects very well. But yeah, you could imagine. I can't imagine it being the only part, the only employee in a shop, but it could work alongside the staff a lot of times.
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:29:20
Mary Ellen Foster
What people end up using robots for are things that are kind of repetitive and things that have to be done, but and then that frees up the staff to do the sort of more creative, interesting things where human intelligence is really required. So I wouldn't see it replacing shop assistants, but I could see it working alongside shop assistants and probably a useful way.
00:17:29:21 - 00:17:44:13
Abigail Acton
I mean, anyone who's been shoe shopping. Yeah. And you see the poor, the poor people finding you the shoe and then in fact, it's the wrong size. They go to the storehouse, they come back and sit in the warehouse or whatever, and they come back and so on. And they're doing that multiple times a day for multiple customers at the same time.
00:17:44:13 - 00:18:09:00
Abigail Acton
I could imagine that would be quite useful to have something you could just send to go get the shoes. Yeah. Daphne, with that's the, the notion of bricks and mortar and getting people into shops, which perhaps is going to be a challenge in itself after the the Covid crisis passes and EBS, all of us having gotten so used to buying online, but buying online brings about its own problems as well.
00:18:09:00 - 00:18:20:13
Abigail Acton
Not being able to touch things, try them on. Returns are shooting through the roof. Can you tell us a little bit about what's happening, with people returning products because they can't try them and see them, in physically before buying?
00:18:20:13 - 00:18:46:07
Daphne Pijnappel
Yes. Yes of course. So what we've seen is that the crisis has permanently changed consumer shopping behavior. It has brought a large group of people online who are not online shopping before. So the question for retailers is not whether they should use you use e-commerce, but how they will do so. And with online shopping come the returns because people can't, try them on or can't feel the product.
00:18:46:09 - 00:19:20:22
Daphne Pijnappel
So the University of Bamberg investigated is customer order and return behavior grew or changed during the pandemic. And what we saw is that the overall online order grew and not surprisingly, the total amount of number of returns grew accordingly, however, we see a slight decrease in the returns percentage, which makes sense if you think about it, because in Covid 19 times, customers order actual needs like groceries or care products or equipment that you need for your home office.
00:19:20:24 - 00:19:48:09
Daphne Pijnappel
So whether a customer returns is heavily dependent on the product category. But indeed, overall, we see with growing e-commerce and grow the returns, but there are ways to reduce them in the first place. So what we see is when, companies give more detailed product information or instruction videos, they can reduce returns. But of course in trailers and retailers do receive them.
00:19:48:11 - 00:20:10:02
Daphne Pijnappel
And it's our question or the question that we address is how to handle them. And some of the old fashion options, for e-tailers and retailers, we're selling them to bulk buyers for not even 10% of the value, or offering them a second hand on their own web shop, or distorting them because they think, okay, those products don't.
00:20:10:04 - 00:20:22:10
Daphne Pijnappel
They don't have any value anymore. And that happens a lot to low value products. So the retail sector is impacted like huge, and companies are experiencing a huge loss of values.
00:20:22:10 - 00:20:42:24
Abigail Acton
And exactly at a time when of course they're being hit so hard by the by the current situation anyway. So it's really lose lose in this situation. So they're forced to sell more online and then they're forced to deal with more stuff bouncing back to them. So your project was the Smile project and you were working towards trying to mitigate the impact, the environmental impact.
00:20:42:24 - 00:20:48:23
Abigail Acton
And also, you know, the cost of businesses. So what did the Smile Project set out to do to to try and alleviate this?
00:20:49:00 - 00:21:05:23
Daphne Pijnappel
Yeah. Well, we've received almost €2 million under the smile project, which is great, and we've devoted it into improving our data model and renewing our software because we are a super company. And our expansion, outside of the Benelux.
00:21:06:00 - 00:21:15:03
Abigail Acton
So what do you what do you actually offer to retailers then? If they if they, if they take up the, the, the the possibility of of your concepts. What what what what how does it work for them.
00:21:15:07 - 00:21:37:07
Daphne Pijnappel
Yeah. Well, this customer returns their, full processor or wastebasket. Our super takes over the intake and sale completely, and it can be done in our own warehouse or as a software, as a service. And our partnership, our house, that that software knows exactly what is wrong with the product and how popular this specific product is in the market.
00:21:37:09 - 00:22:09:14
Daphne Pijnappel
So we inspect each product within, investigate the product, we evaluate the quality. So how good is it or it does. Are there any queries missing or something. So we register the shortcomings and the features and then we clean it. So we can make sure it goes on stock again. And from day to day or so where calculates the most optimal selling price, on the best side possible, which could be an online marketplace or an auction platform.
00:22:09:16 - 00:22:20:07
Daphne Pijnappel
And in this way we can sell every product at an ultimate price. And, so a new customer who enjoys it just has huge products for a discount, right?
00:22:20:07 - 00:22:26:05
Abigail Acton
And so the retailer, of course, then gets money back from something that otherwise they might, in the worst case scenario, have sent to landfill.
00:22:26:05 - 00:22:27:23
Daphne Pijnappel
Exactly. Yes.
00:22:28:00 - 00:22:34:07
Abigail Acton
Right. And and are retailers showing an interest in participating in this concept and using your software.
00:22:34:12 - 00:23:00:22
Daphne Pijnappel
Yes. Yes. Or our, full service model. Because there are two ways some retailers have their own warehouse and our own, grading, we call it. So the inspection of the products, some have them in-house, but there are also a lot of retailers and retailers and do not have such, structure department themselves. So then we take over the whole process completely.
00:23:00:24 - 00:23:07:20
Abigail Acton
And, and they're showing interest and you're trying to expand it further. Is there uptake outside the your country.
00:23:07:22 - 00:23:32:24
Daphne Pijnappel
Yes or no? We have expanded, to Germany, last year and it's growing quite well. And with the software as a service, we can serve more companies within Europe, and we can make the software super standardized so that it works for all kind of products, because I think that's, one of our unique selling points is that or one of our benefits is that we can handle all kinds of products.
00:23:33:01 - 00:23:50:22
Abigail Acton
Right. That's really very interesting. And it's, I think, reassuring to know that that somehow the waste is being cut down and, and, and reduced because I know myself that I've spent more than I'm comfortable having sent back, you know, a few between sizes. It's always a little bit of a lottery.
00:23:50:24 - 00:24:13:18
Daphne Pijnappel
It's such a waste. And we also see that companies say to their customer, please keep it. I know you want to return, but it's cost us more, to process, the product. So please keep it. And what we do is we create waste because customers are like they are not using their product as much because another customer can be super happy, which is very true.
00:24:13:20 - 00:24:17:07
Abigail Acton
Very true. Mary Ellen Frank, would you have any questions to Daphne?
00:24:17:10 - 00:24:46:15
Frank Sandeloev
Just a quick one because, the kind of people you hate, I guess because I hate going on the internet and doing the trade because always, not always, but quite often. How to return? I really hate the process. So I was looking in your, system. It looks like you also got some artificial intelligence to help companies build up a better understanding of what the need to inform, so we can make better choices when you go on the internet.
00:24:46:17 - 00:25:11:19
Daphne Pijnappel
Could you say a little more about this? Yeah, well, our field of expertise lies more in the, Okay. When we have returns, how can we handle them? And how can we give them a second life? So avoiding to recharge. We do help, customers with their product information. So giving a lot of confidence for the customers. But our expertise is more in the.
00:25:11:19 - 00:25:38:03
Daphne Pijnappel
Okay. When we have returns, how can we handle them? And how can we make sure that those return goods are optimized and are sold again? And we also use pictures for that. So during the whole process, we make photographs of the whole product, with all the features, so customers can reach out to us and ask for the pictures before they even buy it so that they know, okay, what's wrong with the product.
00:25:38:05 - 00:25:45:23
Daphne Pijnappel
And this way we make sure that the customers are fully aware of what they're buying and do not return that specific product.
00:25:46:02 - 00:26:14:04
Abigail Acton
So it's basically management of expectation. So you know what you're going to get very interesting. Well I think the the insights that you've all provided us into how, the EU is supporting work that is trying to ensure that the retail sector thrives both during this situation and afterwards is, is very significant. And I really hope that all of your ideas are going to be available and make it.
00:26:14:10 - 00:26:27:20
Abigail Acton
Can I just ask you one question as a final question to wind down. And that would be individually. Now, first I'll start with Mary Ellen. What shift do you think that the retail sector will witness in the coming decade?
00:26:27:22 - 00:26:56:24
Mary Ellen Foster
Well, I think more and more of this sort of, delegating some of the repetitive tasks to robots, not just kind of in the, in the back, you know, there's obviously robots in warehouses now, but having sort of socially intelligent robots kind of front of house, as like as we did it at the, at the information kiosk, as Daphne suggested, actually in the shop, I think trying to sort of have some sort of combination of automated savvy, you know, beyond just sort of self scans but sort of more intelligent things you can actually have a conversation with, maybe get advice or something on what to buy.
00:26:57:01 - 00:27:03:12
Mary Ellen Foster
I think having that sort of automation in the shops more and more, with my, with my lens on, that's what I would sort of imagine. Yeah.
00:27:03:12 - 00:27:10:00
Abigail Acton
And it's your lens that I'm inviting, so that's excellent. I guess and frank. Over the next decade, what do you think we will witness?
00:27:10:02 - 00:27:34:00
Frank Sandeloev
I agree that we will see automation to a large extent. I think, I also believe that we will be looking into better authentication of both the buyer, the seller. So the biometrics is going to come some way or the other. And that's I think that's going to be some of the, the big themes. And then we'll see probably a more hand in hand.
00:27:34:02 - 00:27:56:21
Frank Sandeloev
Physical retail experience together with the digital experience, because we will need still to go back into the shops, do some testing, see how that close works on us, and test new things. Because what I've experienced, at least, is when we can't meet the customers, we're not able to tell people what's really new in the market and what's the new we can provide to them.
00:27:56:23 - 00:28:02:07
Abigail Acton
Yeah, that's very true. That's very true. And Daphne, what do you think is going to happen in the coming decade?
00:28:02:13 - 00:28:12:00
Daphne Pijnappel
Well, retail is going to be more focused on online. So what we just talked about with a return to growing,
00:28:12:02 - 00:28:16:14
Daphne Pijnappel
But also with the importance of informing your customers, it will be a.
00:28:16:14 - 00:28:18:02
Daphne Pijnappel
Very important thing for.
00:28:18:02 - 00:28:21:04
Daphne Pijnappel
Retailers to keep in mind and that if they.
00:28:21:04 - 00:28:23:14
Daphne Pijnappel
Receive returns, because I don't think that that.
00:28:23:14 - 00:28:25:06
Daphne Pijnappel
Will ever stop with online.
00:28:25:06 - 00:28:27:06
Daphne Pijnappel
Shopping, that they can have a.
00:28:27:06 - 00:28:31:23
Daphne Pijnappel
Solution that's beneficial for them, but also for the environment.
00:28:31:23 - 00:28:40:11
Daphne Pijnappel
And maybe the latter is even more important as well. You have to go to a circular society in which in which we optimally reuse.
00:28:40:11 - 00:28:44:20
Daphne Pijnappel
Materials and products. So it's getting even more significant over.
00:28:44:20 - 00:28:46:21
Daphne Pijnappel
The coming, coming years.
00:28:46:23 - 00:28:58:13
Abigail Acton
Yes, indeed indeed. Well, thank you all very much for having spent some time with me this morning and, sharing your ideas, which have been very interesting. Grateful to you all for having taken part.
00:28:58:15 - 00:29:00:24
Frank Sandeloev
Thank you. Thank you for being on board.
00:29:01:05 - 00:29:02:10
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah, thanks a lot. It was great.
00:29:02:12 - 00:29:32:11
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. Bye bye. Find out what other projects are working on to help the U.S. retail sector to thrive. By taking a look at the research EU magazine new synergies of shopping, e-commerce or bricks and mortar. Available on the Cordis website. Cordis.europa.eu. Curious to see what else is being achieved? Thanks to EU sans funding, the Cordis website offers you short news stories, interviews with researchers who are exploring everything from the domestication of early canines to wormholes.
00:29:32:16 - 00:29:53:12
Abigail Acton
Results packs bringing a variety of projects together. If you have a special interest. Take a look. We've probably covered it to help you drill down into the research in a particular field. The magazine available online or in print, has a special section which the CORDIScovery Podcast explores. And if you think you have a project that could benefit from EU support, come and check out what others are doing in your field.
00:29:53:14 - 00:30:12:19
Abigail Acton
Take a look at the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. Our next episode will consider transforming European health systems in the wake of Covid 19. What can our scientific community do to meet the challenges that lie ahead? Join me to hear what three leading researchers in the field can reveal. We're always happy to hear from you.
00:30:12:20 - 00:30:24:23
Abigail Acton
So drop us a line editorial@cordis.europa.eu. Until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:17:00
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:17:02 - 00:00:37:08
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of the CORDIScovery podcast with me, Abigail Acton. Shuttered windows, closed shopping centers. Our high streets are feeling the brunt of the coronavirus crisis. Businesses which relied entirely on their bricks and mortar presence have had to scramble to get their shops online or face a total collapse of income, holding out if they can for a footfall to return to our streets.
00:00:37:10 - 00:00:59:20
Abigail Acton
Food sellers have been faced with the logistical challenge of getting perishable goods out to customers unable or unwilling to come to supermarkets for the weekly shop. All this pressure on a sector that has already had to rethink its model in the face of competition from online giants and a pre-pandemic drift to e-commerce. Is retail just one other industry facing a fundamental shift to the way it will operate in a post-Covid world?
00:00:59:22 - 00:01:19:13
Abigail Acton
Will people flock back to the shops? Some have saved money during the crisis. Those able to work from home but not able to spend on holidays, events or leisure. How will our shops entice them in? In an increasingly cashless society, does our dependance on paying by card make us vulnerable to fraud? Buying at a distance means returning more goods.
00:01:19:15 - 00:01:23:09
Abigail Acton
How can the economic and environmental impact of that be mitigated?
00:01:25:23 - 00:01:53:12
Abigail Acton
Perhaps our three guests whose work was supported by the EU's horizon 2020 program, have some answers. A warm welcome to Frank Sandeloev CEO of CardLab Innovation, who has been an electronic warfare officer in the Danish Army, an airline captain and a biometric expert for the International Air Transport Association. Frank has a keen interest in cyber security, fraud prevention and unique biometric user identification, with a focus on privacy protection.
00:01:53:14 - 00:01:57:09
Abigail Acton
He was the co-ordinator of the QuardCard Project. Hello, Frank.
00:01:57:11 - 00:01:59:16
Frank Sandeloev
Oh, thanks for having me here.
00:01:59:18 - 00:02:20:18
Abigail Acton
Daphne Pijnappel a B2B marketeer, at BuyBay a business that combats the waste in e-commerce by processing and reselling returned products. And Overstock is interested in everything related to retail and sustainability. She is responsible for marketing with a focus on business development and process optimization. Daphne was involved in the SMILE project. Hello, Daphne. Welcome.
00:02:20:19 - 00:02:22:18
Daphne Pijnappel
Hi Abigail.
00:02:22:20 - 00:02:43:05
Abigail Acton
Dr Mary Ellen Foster is a senior lecturer in human robot interaction at the University of Glasgow. Her research is in the area of social robotics, developing robots that are enabled to engage in face to face conversation with human partners, and then exploring how people react to those robots in a range of public spaces. Mary Ellen was the coordinator of the MuMMER project.
00:02:43:07 - 00:02:44:07
Abigail Acton
Good morning, Mary Ellen.
00:02:44:13 - 00:02:46:03
Mary Ellen Foster
Hi. It's nice to talk to you today.
00:02:46:05 - 00:03:08:08
Abigail Acton
Very welcome, all of you. The Abel Prize, which honors achievements in mathematics, has just been awarded to Israeli Avi Widget and Hungarian Laszlo Lavash for their contributions to computer security. Security and its connection to digital activity is clearly under the spotlight. Certainly, current trends make the work done by the QuardCard project more relevant than ever. So, Frank, if I can turn to you first.
00:03:08:10 - 00:03:19:05
Abigail Acton
For the past year, online retail has seen a real boom, and those shopping in supermarkets and other essential stores have turned to cashless payments. Do these shifts leave people more exposed to fraud?
00:03:19:09 - 00:03:41:17
Frank Sandeloev
Unfortunately, this story tells yes that is the truth. What we see now is that the criminal activities they follow, the money and stay the money are digital and they are in data. That's where you got the real value. So we see and cyber security concern from outside that needs to be mitigated. We see a rise in identity theft.
00:03:41:19 - 00:04:02:18
Frank Sandeloev
That means you can lose your personal data, but also you have financial data. We see hacking of, e-commerce sites, which again exposes both the merchants and also the user. And we also see, just like fraud is on the rise. And one thing is that hackers are really active today. By the way, you could buy into the lottery.
00:04:02:18 - 00:04:24:08
Frank Sandeloev
You can buy up to 10,000 Indian users. And probably there's some in between and got active data that has value. That's one. And then we see passwords because you have to date a number of passwords an average of 40 and 45. You have to remember. That means we are becoming lazy. We have to remember the same words. We put the same in the same place.
00:04:24:10 - 00:04:35:08
Frank Sandeloev
And that means hacking computers. If you hack one site, you will get access to a lot of stuff. So yes, people are absolutely becoming more vulnerable, but that's what we need to look at.
00:04:35:10 - 00:04:40:20
Abigail Acton
And how is Court Card been trying to make shopping on the use of credit cards safer?
00:04:40:21 - 00:05:04:02
Frank Sandeloev
What we have done is create the biometric payment card, but it also works for a lot of other stuff. But that gives you the ability to control your own data. It stays in the cards you control it by. Your fingerprint enables you to have a higher payment limit due to privacy protection. It also gives you 100% certainty that you are the one you claim to be.
00:05:04:07 - 00:05:09:08
Frank Sandeloev
And that works the other way around. You as a merchant would also like to know who you're dealing with.
00:05:09:12 - 00:05:19:11
Abigail Acton
Can I stop you for a second? I'm curious. So you. If you say it reads fingerprints, but if you're buying online, talk me through it. I go to somewhere, I decide to buy online. How would I use your card?
00:05:19:17 - 00:05:48:06
Frank Sandeloev
What do we do when you're on the online event? Is that we have the card. We have a back end identification solution. So when you identify yourself on the card, the card turns you into a token where you can use online. That means your true identity is not visible to men in the military or anybody else on the internet, except for those who need to know who you are and that gives you a lot more certainty that we can eliminate online fraud, which is today is a big hassle.
00:05:48:08 - 00:05:57:15
Abigail Acton
Okay, so each time you use the card, you become, a different identity, almost because of the token that represents who you are changes with each of your interactions.
00:05:57:20 - 00:06:02:02
Frank Sandeloev
Yeah. And if somebody tries to use your token, it's already been used to be rejected.
00:06:02:04 - 00:06:04:09
Abigail Acton
Right? It's expired because it's one time only.
00:06:04:11 - 00:06:05:18
Frank Sandeloev
Exactly.
00:06:05:20 - 00:06:13:23
Abigail Acton
So if I was in a retail environment, bricks and mortar, when we do eventually go back into our shops, as I'm sure we will. How does that work, then?
00:06:13:24 - 00:06:34:03
Frank Sandeloev
That works exactly in the same way, because we can do the same level of security. The token would pass by the point of sale. Or you could do it in. Yeah. The first step is that you identify yourself by digitally. That can be done, let's say on the first level security, the second level maximum security is tokenizing your identity.
00:06:34:08 - 00:06:39:21
Frank Sandeloev
And then we use it with the new psd2 where you authorize what it is that you're doing online.
00:06:39:21 - 00:06:42:09
Abigail Acton
Sorry, what is a psd2. So you just mentioned.
00:06:42:11 - 00:07:08:06
Frank Sandeloev
You two is a payment service directive issued by the EU. But what is two, two and a half years ago, where you actually verify your payment today, you also online receive an SMS. You have to verify who you are with a, biometric card. You can get rid of all that hassle waiting for the service and make sure you're online, etc. you do everything on the card and as it's offline, there's nobody else being able to look at what you're doing.
00:07:08:08 - 00:07:11:18
Frank Sandeloev
So the hackers have been excluded from you. Environment.
00:07:11:22 - 00:07:13:22
Abigail Acton
Perfect. Like a bubble. Like a protective bubble.
00:07:14:01 - 00:07:16:12
Frank Sandeloev
Exactly. And if you cannot see it, you cannot hack it.
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:31:06
Abigail Acton
Right? Right. Perfect. And are credit cards interested? Because this is sounds a little bit like disruptive technology. The notion of having to have a way of reading the fingerprint that's integrated into the card itself. Are credit card companies interested in taking up this idea?
00:07:31:07 - 00:07:52:06
Frank Sandeloev
There's, we actually got accepted by the Mastercard lighthouse program. They wanted to put us on because they're working on cryptos. They're working on, let's say, the future of payment. They're working on smart city solutions as well. And what they also know is the cyber security is a major part of major problem that needs to be solved here.
00:07:52:08 - 00:08:07:04
Frank Sandeloev
So we in this program together with potentially a number of partners, and we also have other companies, fintech companies around the world plugging into our solutions, cryptocurrencies, etc.. So there's a huge interest in it.
00:08:07:06 - 00:08:17:05
Abigail Acton
So it might be possible that we would be carrying one of these cards in our wallets at some point in the near future or mid future or long term, more or less.
00:08:17:07 - 00:08:21:13
Frank Sandeloev
According to the mid-future Okay. That would be a ramp up process across.
00:08:21:13 - 00:08:22:00
Abigail Acton
Yes.
00:08:22:04 - 00:08:32:22
Frank Sandeloev
And that would be the legislation that needs to be in place today. You got central database and so on. People need to know how vulnerable they are before they really start to invest in secure solutions.
00:08:33:01 - 00:08:39:12
Abigail Acton
Yes. And unfortunately we find out how vulnerable we are often when we when it's too late, shutting stable doors after horses are bolted, etc..
00:08:39:12 - 00:08:44:01
Frank Sandeloev
Yeah, yeah. We consider biometric causes more or less like buying an insurance, right?
00:08:44:03 - 00:08:50:21
Abigail Acton
Indeed. Very interesting. Thank you, Mary Ellen. Daphne, would you have any questions that you would like to put to Frank?
00:08:50:23 - 00:08:59:13
Mary Ellen Foster
I mean, I guess I'm just curious. I try to imagine what this would physically look like. Is it does it look basically like a, like a credit card that you would actually hold? It would fit in your wallet the same way a.
00:08:59:13 - 00:09:19:01
Frank Sandeloev
Normal one would? Exactly. It's got the same dimensions as a credit card, but it has the fingerprint sensor on, it has a display and has a lot of electronics inside. So just try to imagine the McDonald being pressed together to a point seven of a millimeter thickness. So it is normal credit card shape and it works in the existing infrastructure.
00:09:19:01 - 00:09:21:10
Frank Sandeloev
It works with whatever exists today.
00:09:21:12 - 00:09:42:13
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. That sounds excellent. And another thing, of course, is the the fact that we need to encourage people to return to retail bricks and mortar and any way that facilitates their payment systems. And of course, we become cashless with the pressure of the coronavirus crisis. So that also would be another use that I can see, being very popular.
00:09:42:15 - 00:10:00:15
Abigail Acton
Mary Ellen, if I could turn to you talking about trying to entice shoppers back, online, of course, has taken off and exploded. But how do you think we are going to be able to get people back into shops once they can actually go? How is your robotics, background and ideas helping with that, do you think?
00:10:00:16 - 00:10:17:17
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah. So what we did on the project that I coordinated was we took, a humanoid robot, and we put it into a shopping mall, basically beside the information desk. So there are, there are people in at the information desk who will tell you how to find the food court and where the toilets are and what the specials are today.
00:10:17:19 - 00:10:40:02
Mary Ellen Foster
And we figured that was kind of for our initial deployment. Anyway, here's a good use case for this robot to put it there. And it did. It did attract a lot of people's attention to that, that there was a robot that they could talk to. And I think, I mean, a big difference between I mean, one difference and Daphne's probably going to talk about this with bricks and mortar versus, online shopping is can you actually see and touch and feel the goods before you actually buy them?
00:10:40:04 - 00:10:50:11
Mary Ellen Foster
But another thing is just a whole sort of overall experience of being in a place maybe, maybe, you know, because we've shown we can do shopping without having to go anywhere. So there has to be some other reason to go to these.
00:10:50:11 - 00:10:52:06
Abigail Acton
Places, some sort of added value.
00:10:52:07 - 00:11:03:09
Mary Ellen Foster
Yes. Yeah. And you could sort of see robots like what we tried putting in there as kind of an added value. You go to the shop, you do all your shopping things, but you can also maybe have a conversation with a robot while you're there.
00:11:03:13 - 00:11:04:24
Abigail Acton
Which is always cool.
00:11:05:01 - 00:11:28:06
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah, I mean, it's cool. All of the people you've probably seen these robots in shops before, what tends to happen with some of quite a lot of the time is they do attract attention and people are like, wow, cool, the robot. And then it turns into essentially a kiosk. Once, once you've actually come up to the robot, it attracts people's attention, but then it essentially devolves into you're using it as a touchscreen or it does nothing.
00:11:28:08 - 00:11:43:12
Mary Ellen Foster
So what we did in summer was try to take that use case, take that people's interest in a robot, but try to make it actually able to have a conversation with because people want to have a conversation with these robots. But if the robot's not able to reply, then people will say, fine, okay, I'll just use a touch screen.
00:11:43:14 - 00:11:53:15
Mary Ellen Foster
So we try to make it able to engage in a bit of social conversation if people want to. As well as sort of directing them to the coffee shop. So that was a goal of what we were trying to do in this project.
00:11:53:15 - 00:12:11:09
Abigail Acton
Did you manage to move away from, from from gimmick to useful tool? I mention that because I came across a robot once in a hotel reception, I think it was Amsterdam and it was intriguing. But then all it could really do is tell me what the perspective weather forecast was, which I had multiple layers. Yeah.
00:12:11:10 - 00:12:34:02
Mary Ellen Foster
I mean, it's sort of a bit hard to come up with a use case where. But this was an use case where people do come to the information desk and ask for information. So we so we thought this is when we talked to them, we did some co-design work with, shop owners and the mall owners at the start of this project, and they sort of brainstormed all the things I thought the robot could do, things like carry your packages for you, things like provide security, like, now the robot we're using can't do these things.
00:12:34:02 - 00:12:50:02
Mary Ellen Foster
What this robot can do is talk and gesture. And so on. So we tried to think of a use case. It would actually be useful, because of the challenges of doing this, actually, you know, in a wide open space, the conversation did actually kind of end up being please tell me where the food court art is.
00:12:50:04 - 00:13:01:24
Mary Ellen Foster
Oh, it's over there. But instead of a bit more, we did some lab based testing as well. And it was able, if you wanted to chat about the weather or chat about movies, if you had to be, if you were in the mall and you wanted to spend a bit of time talking to somebody, it was capable of that.
00:13:01:24 - 00:13:16:23
Mary Ellen Foster
Not so much during the actual deployment in the mall for various technical reasons, but it is a use case that we think if you could get a bit more of people want to talk to a robot, people are really excited about a robot the first time it kind of fails, then they're like, okay, fine, whatever. I'll stop trying.
00:13:16:23 - 00:13:22:16
Mary Ellen Foster
So we want to avoid that moment of we want to sort of get it so that can have a social conversation with people.
00:13:22:18 - 00:13:22:22
Mary Ellen Foster
In.
00:13:22:22 - 00:13:23:23
Mary Ellen Foster
That sort of context.
00:13:24:00 - 00:13:35:10
Abigail Acton
Yeah, no. Absolutely fascinating. And of course, it's, you know, it's an initial foot in the water to see public engagement with the device as well. And so what was the feedback from the general public? Did they embrace it? What did you find out?
00:13:35:10 - 00:13:56:01
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah, I mean, people would talk to it, but I think we weren't able to detect for various privacy reasons whether people were coming back to it repeatedly. So we had we have a whole lot of one off interactions and people people started meet people, found it interesting. It attracted attention. I'm not sure that the interactions were quite what we told, but also because of the shopping mall where we put this was in Finland.
00:13:56:03 - 00:14:13:11
Mary Ellen Foster
So the robot had to speak in Finnish, which was a whole extra level of language processing challenge if we'd had it in an English speaking. Unfortunately, this is the reality of natural language processing right now. If we had it in an English speaking place, the speech recognition would probably have been better. So that added an additional challenge. But still people were positive about it.
00:14:13:11 - 00:14:24:21
Mary Ellen Foster
People enjoyed it. People found found it neat. They, you know, it just didn't do such a good job of understanding them. So maybe it didn't quite it wasn't quite as useful as we talk, but it was still a good proof of concept if we'd like to try to build it.
00:14:24:21 - 00:14:38:22
Abigail Acton
You sure? I mean, this is the thing. I mean, these things take that, you know, they develop over steps and stages. And so you've established that it has, something to offer and that people want to engage in it. I mean, if I see a robot, I want to engage with it. Absolutely. Yeah. What are your next steps?
00:14:38:22 - 00:14:40:22
Abigail Acton
Do you have, plans to to build on this?
00:14:40:22 - 00:15:03:10
Mary Ellen Foster
Well, well, the the project is finished now, certainly in Glasgow. My, my my particular research team. I've got a PhD student who's working right now to try to figure out how we could adapt this robot to be deployed in a museum and on campus at the University of Glasgow. So then we said we've tried to think about and there's sort of Glasgow specific issues to do with how do people want to interact and accents and things like that in Glasgow.
00:15:03:10 - 00:15:12:19
Mary Ellen Foster
So we tried to take this use case and try to deploy it in other public spaces in other contexts and sort of see how do people respond to it and how should the behavior maybe change for different deployment locations.
00:15:12:24 - 00:15:13:12
Abigail Acton
So absolutely.
00:15:13:12 - 00:15:22:22
Mary Ellen Foster
Fascinating. I know other project members are also trying to to explore deploying bits of the system in other contexts. But in Glasgow, that's our specific goal, is try to deploy it around Glasgow.
00:15:22:22 - 00:15:33:20
Abigail Acton
Oh, fascinating. Attempted to go and check it out when we can finally travel again. Absolutely. Do either of you, Frank and Daphne have a question for Mary Ellen Frank? Maybe something about the security focus.
00:15:33:22 - 00:15:53:08
Frank Sandeloev
You know, just very short, because I know there's a lot of work going into doing a job like this. And we all seen some of those movies where the soldiers are going around, some are being reprogramed by the wrong people. So, Well, I was just wondering, what are you doing in terms of projects? Because you actually work on an IoT device?
00:15:53:10 - 00:16:18:14
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah. I mean, I have to say, the security is not something we've thought about much up to this point in this space because it was more a matter of getting it working at all. But yes, this is an internet connected piece of hardware that's sitting out in public on a public Wi-Fi network. So yes, there are these are things we need to think about, because obviously there's issues now in kind of conversational systems in terms of systems learning to, you know, either learning to say bad things or behaving in bad ways.
00:16:18:14 - 00:16:32:21
Mary Ellen Foster
And even if we managed to program them so that they don't do those things, if we if there's somebody who kind of gets in as a you know, gives us new language model, so it'll behave in different ways. So putting robots in public spaces, that's not something we've thought about much yet, but it's definitely a thing we need to start thinking about.
00:16:32:21 - 00:16:35:20
Mary Ellen Foster
If we want to put these things out in the world more. So it's a good point.
00:16:36:00 - 00:16:39:16
Abigail Acton
Yeah, indeed. Daphne, did you have any questions for Mary Ellen or for Frank?
00:16:39:18 - 00:16:51:24
Daphne Pijnappel
Yeah, I was wondering, could it also replace, personnel in shops, like, instead of an employee that helps you with, checking the clothes or the products that a robot could do?
00:16:52:04 - 00:17:11:16
Mary Ellen Foster
Yes. For sure. Yes. It would maybe need to be a slightly different robot platform that was able to maybe grasp things. I robot wasn't very good at holding on to things, so we couldn't actually physically manipulate objects very well. But yeah, you could imagine. I can't imagine it being the only part, the only employee in a shop, but it could work alongside the staff a lot of times.
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:29:20
Mary Ellen Foster
What people end up using robots for are things that are kind of repetitive and things that have to be done, but and then that frees up the staff to do the sort of more creative, interesting things where human intelligence is really required. So I wouldn't see it replacing shop assistants, but I could see it working alongside shop assistants and probably a useful way.
00:17:29:21 - 00:17:44:13
Abigail Acton
I mean, anyone who's been shoe shopping. Yeah. And you see the poor, the poor people finding you the shoe and then in fact, it's the wrong size. They go to the storehouse, they come back and sit in the warehouse or whatever, and they come back and so on. And they're doing that multiple times a day for multiple customers at the same time.
00:17:44:13 - 00:18:09:00
Abigail Acton
I could imagine that would be quite useful to have something you could just send to go get the shoes. Yeah. Daphne, with that's the, the notion of bricks and mortar and getting people into shops, which perhaps is going to be a challenge in itself after the the Covid crisis passes and EBS, all of us having gotten so used to buying online, but buying online brings about its own problems as well.
00:18:09:00 - 00:18:20:13
Abigail Acton
Not being able to touch things, try them on. Returns are shooting through the roof. Can you tell us a little bit about what's happening, with people returning products because they can't try them and see them, in physically before buying?
00:18:20:13 - 00:18:46:07
Daphne Pijnappel
Yes. Yes of course. So what we've seen is that the crisis has permanently changed consumer shopping behavior. It has brought a large group of people online who are not online shopping before. So the question for retailers is not whether they should use you use e-commerce, but how they will do so. And with online shopping come the returns because people can't, try them on or can't feel the product.
00:18:46:09 - 00:19:20:22
Daphne Pijnappel
So the University of Bamberg investigated is customer order and return behavior grew or changed during the pandemic. And what we saw is that the overall online order grew and not surprisingly, the total amount of number of returns grew accordingly, however, we see a slight decrease in the returns percentage, which makes sense if you think about it, because in Covid 19 times, customers order actual needs like groceries or care products or equipment that you need for your home office.
00:19:20:24 - 00:19:48:09
Daphne Pijnappel
So whether a customer returns is heavily dependent on the product category. But indeed, overall, we see with growing e-commerce and grow the returns, but there are ways to reduce them in the first place. So what we see is when, companies give more detailed product information or instruction videos, they can reduce returns. But of course in trailers and retailers do receive them.
00:19:48:11 - 00:20:10:02
Daphne Pijnappel
And it's our question or the question that we address is how to handle them. And some of the old fashion options, for e-tailers and retailers, we're selling them to bulk buyers for not even 10% of the value, or offering them a second hand on their own web shop, or distorting them because they think, okay, those products don't.
00:20:10:04 - 00:20:22:10
Daphne Pijnappel
They don't have any value anymore. And that happens a lot to low value products. So the retail sector is impacted like huge, and companies are experiencing a huge loss of values.
00:20:22:10 - 00:20:42:24
Abigail Acton
And exactly at a time when of course they're being hit so hard by the by the current situation anyway. So it's really lose lose in this situation. So they're forced to sell more online and then they're forced to deal with more stuff bouncing back to them. So your project was the Smile project and you were working towards trying to mitigate the impact, the environmental impact.
00:20:42:24 - 00:20:48:23
Abigail Acton
And also, you know, the cost of businesses. So what did the Smile Project set out to do to to try and alleviate this?
00:20:49:00 - 00:21:05:23
Daphne Pijnappel
Yeah. Well, we've received almost €2 million under the smile project, which is great, and we've devoted it into improving our data model and renewing our software because we are a super company. And our expansion, outside of the Benelux.
00:21:06:00 - 00:21:15:03
Abigail Acton
So what do you what do you actually offer to retailers then? If they if they, if they take up the, the, the the possibility of of your concepts. What what what what how does it work for them.
00:21:15:07 - 00:21:37:07
Daphne Pijnappel
Yeah. Well, this customer returns their, full processor or wastebasket. Our super takes over the intake and sale completely, and it can be done in our own warehouse or as a software, as a service. And our partnership, our house, that that software knows exactly what is wrong with the product and how popular this specific product is in the market.
00:21:37:09 - 00:22:09:14
Daphne Pijnappel
So we inspect each product within, investigate the product, we evaluate the quality. So how good is it or it does. Are there any queries missing or something. So we register the shortcomings and the features and then we clean it. So we can make sure it goes on stock again. And from day to day or so where calculates the most optimal selling price, on the best side possible, which could be an online marketplace or an auction platform.
00:22:09:16 - 00:22:20:07
Daphne Pijnappel
And in this way we can sell every product at an ultimate price. And, so a new customer who enjoys it just has huge products for a discount, right?
00:22:20:07 - 00:22:26:05
Abigail Acton
And so the retailer, of course, then gets money back from something that otherwise they might, in the worst case scenario, have sent to landfill.
00:22:26:05 - 00:22:27:23
Daphne Pijnappel
Exactly. Yes.
00:22:28:00 - 00:22:34:07
Abigail Acton
Right. And and are retailers showing an interest in participating in this concept and using your software.
00:22:34:12 - 00:23:00:22
Daphne Pijnappel
Yes. Yes. Or our, full service model. Because there are two ways some retailers have their own warehouse and our own, grading, we call it. So the inspection of the products, some have them in-house, but there are also a lot of retailers and retailers and do not have such, structure department themselves. So then we take over the whole process completely.
00:23:00:24 - 00:23:07:20
Abigail Acton
And, and they're showing interest and you're trying to expand it further. Is there uptake outside the your country.
00:23:07:22 - 00:23:32:24
Daphne Pijnappel
Yes or no? We have expanded, to Germany, last year and it's growing quite well. And with the software as a service, we can serve more companies within Europe, and we can make the software super standardized so that it works for all kind of products, because I think that's, one of our unique selling points is that or one of our benefits is that we can handle all kinds of products.
00:23:33:01 - 00:23:50:22
Abigail Acton
Right. That's really very interesting. And it's, I think, reassuring to know that that somehow the waste is being cut down and, and, and reduced because I know myself that I've spent more than I'm comfortable having sent back, you know, a few between sizes. It's always a little bit of a lottery.
00:23:50:24 - 00:24:13:18
Daphne Pijnappel
It's such a waste. And we also see that companies say to their customer, please keep it. I know you want to return, but it's cost us more, to process, the product. So please keep it. And what we do is we create waste because customers are like they are not using their product as much because another customer can be super happy, which is very true.
00:24:13:20 - 00:24:17:07
Abigail Acton
Very true. Mary Ellen Frank, would you have any questions to Daphne?
00:24:17:10 - 00:24:46:15
Frank Sandeloev
Just a quick one because, the kind of people you hate, I guess because I hate going on the internet and doing the trade because always, not always, but quite often. How to return? I really hate the process. So I was looking in your, system. It looks like you also got some artificial intelligence to help companies build up a better understanding of what the need to inform, so we can make better choices when you go on the internet.
00:24:46:17 - 00:25:11:19
Daphne Pijnappel
Could you say a little more about this? Yeah, well, our field of expertise lies more in the, Okay. When we have returns, how can we handle them? And how can we give them a second life? So avoiding to recharge. We do help, customers with their product information. So giving a lot of confidence for the customers. But our expertise is more in the.
00:25:11:19 - 00:25:38:03
Daphne Pijnappel
Okay. When we have returns, how can we handle them? And how can we make sure that those return goods are optimized and are sold again? And we also use pictures for that. So during the whole process, we make photographs of the whole product, with all the features, so customers can reach out to us and ask for the pictures before they even buy it so that they know, okay, what's wrong with the product.
00:25:38:05 - 00:25:45:23
Daphne Pijnappel
And this way we make sure that the customers are fully aware of what they're buying and do not return that specific product.
00:25:46:02 - 00:26:14:04
Abigail Acton
So it's basically management of expectation. So you know what you're going to get very interesting. Well I think the the insights that you've all provided us into how, the EU is supporting work that is trying to ensure that the retail sector thrives both during this situation and afterwards is, is very significant. And I really hope that all of your ideas are going to be available and make it.
00:26:14:10 - 00:26:27:20
Abigail Acton
Can I just ask you one question as a final question to wind down. And that would be individually. Now, first I'll start with Mary Ellen. What shift do you think that the retail sector will witness in the coming decade?
00:26:27:22 - 00:26:56:24
Mary Ellen Foster
Well, I think more and more of this sort of, delegating some of the repetitive tasks to robots, not just kind of in the, in the back, you know, there's obviously robots in warehouses now, but having sort of socially intelligent robots kind of front of house, as like as we did it at the, at the information kiosk, as Daphne suggested, actually in the shop, I think trying to sort of have some sort of combination of automated savvy, you know, beyond just sort of self scans but sort of more intelligent things you can actually have a conversation with, maybe get advice or something on what to buy.
00:26:57:01 - 00:27:03:12
Mary Ellen Foster
I think having that sort of automation in the shops more and more, with my, with my lens on, that's what I would sort of imagine. Yeah.
00:27:03:12 - 00:27:10:00
Abigail Acton
And it's your lens that I'm inviting, so that's excellent. I guess and frank. Over the next decade, what do you think we will witness?
00:27:10:02 - 00:27:34:00
Frank Sandeloev
I agree that we will see automation to a large extent. I think, I also believe that we will be looking into better authentication of both the buyer, the seller. So the biometrics is going to come some way or the other. And that's I think that's going to be some of the, the big themes. And then we'll see probably a more hand in hand.
00:27:34:02 - 00:27:56:21
Frank Sandeloev
Physical retail experience together with the digital experience, because we will need still to go back into the shops, do some testing, see how that close works on us, and test new things. Because what I've experienced, at least, is when we can't meet the customers, we're not able to tell people what's really new in the market and what's the new we can provide to them.
00:27:56:23 - 00:28:02:07
Abigail Acton
Yeah, that's very true. That's very true. And Daphne, what do you think is going to happen in the coming decade?
00:28:02:13 - 00:28:12:00
Daphne Pijnappel
Well, retail is going to be more focused on online. So what we just talked about with a return to growing,
00:28:12:02 - 00:28:16:14
Daphne Pijnappel
But also with the importance of informing your customers, it will be a.
00:28:16:14 - 00:28:18:02
Daphne Pijnappel
Very important thing for.
00:28:18:02 - 00:28:21:04
Daphne Pijnappel
Retailers to keep in mind and that if they.
00:28:21:04 - 00:28:23:14
Daphne Pijnappel
Receive returns, because I don't think that that.
00:28:23:14 - 00:28:25:06
Daphne Pijnappel
Will ever stop with online.
00:28:25:06 - 00:28:27:06
Daphne Pijnappel
Shopping, that they can have a.
00:28:27:06 - 00:28:31:23
Daphne Pijnappel
Solution that's beneficial for them, but also for the environment.
00:28:31:23 - 00:28:40:11
Daphne Pijnappel
And maybe the latter is even more important as well. You have to go to a circular society in which in which we optimally reuse.
00:28:40:11 - 00:28:44:20
Daphne Pijnappel
Materials and products. So it's getting even more significant over.
00:28:44:20 - 00:28:46:21
Daphne Pijnappel
The coming, coming years.
00:28:46:23 - 00:28:58:13
Abigail Acton
Yes, indeed indeed. Well, thank you all very much for having spent some time with me this morning and, sharing your ideas, which have been very interesting. Grateful to you all for having taken part.
00:28:58:15 - 00:29:00:24
Frank Sandeloev
Thank you. Thank you for being on board.
00:29:01:05 - 00:29:02:10
Mary Ellen Foster
Yeah, thanks a lot. It was great.
00:29:02:12 - 00:29:32:11
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. Bye bye. Find out what other projects are working on to help the U.S. retail sector to thrive. By taking a look at the research EU magazine new synergies of shopping, e-commerce or bricks and mortar. Available on the Cordis website. Cordis.europa.eu. Curious to see what else is being achieved? Thanks to EU sans funding, the Cordis website offers you short news stories, interviews with researchers who are exploring everything from the domestication of early canines to wormholes.
00:29:32:16 - 00:29:53:12
Abigail Acton
Results packs bringing a variety of projects together. If you have a special interest. Take a look. We've probably covered it to help you drill down into the research in a particular field. The magazine available online or in print, has a special section which the CORDIScovery Podcast explores. And if you think you have a project that could benefit from EU support, come and check out what others are doing in your field.
00:29:53:14 - 00:30:12:19
Abigail Acton
Take a look at the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. Our next episode will consider transforming European health systems in the wake of Covid 19. What can our scientific community do to meet the challenges that lie ahead? Join me to hear what three leading researchers in the field can reveal. We're always happy to hear from you.
00:30:12:20 - 00:30:24:23
Abigail Acton
So drop us a line editorial@cordis.europa.eu. Until next time.
Shuttered windows, closed shopping centres: our high streets are feeling the brunt of the coronavirus crisis. Businesses which relied entirely on their bricks and mortar presence have had to scramble to get their shops online or face a total collapse of income: holding out, if they can, for footfall to return to our streets. All this pressure arrived at a time when the retail sector was already having to rethink its model in the face of stiff competition from online giants and a pre-pandemic drift towards e-commerce. In this episode of CORDIScovery, our host, Abigail Acton has the pleasure to discuss the future of retail with three Horizon 2020-funded guests who are experts within the field: Frank Sandeloev, CEO of CardLab Innovation, who brings to the table valuable insights on how to ensure online shopping remains safe; Daphne Pijnappel, a B2B marketeer at BuyBay, is interested in everything related to retail and sustainability; and finally, Mary Ellen Foster, a Senior Lecturer in Human-Robot Interaction at the University of Glasgow, brings to the debate her experience in how robots can make physical shopping much more enticing to customers.
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If you have any feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you! Send us any comments, questions or suggestions to the usual email address, editorial@cordis.europa.eu.
Keywords
CORDIScovery, CORDIS, podcast, shopping, COVID-19, retail, e-commerce, coronavirus