Impacts on retail from ICT
Daniel Hanks BT160 Consider the impact of Information Communication and Technologies on Retail What are Information Communication Technologies? In today’s Society Information Communication Technologies (ICT) are the dominant factor in all fields. From the basic uses of computers for word processing to international communications for world trade. ... What is Retail? ... The history of retail dates back to the roman ages and back then the same principle would have been used. When ICT’s merge with Retail The connection between the two is still in its immaturity stage and is improving all the time. The first noticeable change on retail by ICT’s would have been from barcodes and the use of them in shops and supermarkets. ... The involvement with ICT’s and this system was to reduce customer waiting times and product life cycles. ... Credit cards have made an influential part on today’s retail. ... The introduction of the internet has brought more influence into modern retail than any other new investment. ... Impacts on Retail Looking closely on the changes above there have been good and bad impacts that effect not only the business but the political and environmental areas. The Barcode situation or otherwise known as POS, Point of Sale first emerged from American railroads then to groceries in 1973. ... Any retail member of staff would need to do accounting, invoicing, and inventory management before the introduction of Barcode. ... The reason to adopt such technology was to increase speed and accuracy of procedures at the checkouts, Thus being a huge benefit for retail industries. ... To summarise the Barcode impact, is that it has always proved to be a most useful invention and is now used in every day life from stock counting to price checking. Ken Jones and Jim Simpson (1990) say that transportation effects retail location by changing the slope of spatial demand curve:  What the above diagram shows is that from the early 1920’s competition from distant supermarkets have taken effect on local shops near households.