New software provides the largest Italian cooperative retailer with consistent pricing, promotion and seamless transaction across sales channels

New software provides the largest Italian cooperative retailer with consistent pricing, promotion and seamless transaction across sales channels

Unicoop Firenze, Italy’s largest cooperative retailer, has completed its implementation of the NCR Sales Transaction Services (STS) module of NCR Retail Transaction Services as part of its strategy to unify its store transaction software and provide customers with a seamless shopping experience across multiple channels.

NCR said its system is designed to enable retailers to manage consistent product, price and promotions data across in-store, online and mobile customer touch points simply and cost effectively. As a result Unicoop Firenze’s can now manage three previously separate multi-vendor subsystems – self-checkouts, self-scanning and self-service scales – in a unified way.

It will also enable the retailer to bring new customer interaction channels, such as support for smartphone-enabled shopping lists, to market quickly without disruptive and expensive infrastructure changes. Additionally, the implementation has lowered the operating costs associated with system maintenance, supplier management and software enhancements, testing, distribution and fixes.

Timely communication delivery

“The NCR software has greatly enhanced the effectiveness and timeliness of our customer engagement campaigns,” said Riccardo Rapi, chief information officer at Unicoop Firenze. “This deployment has also enabled us to interface and unify three separate self-service systems, which will lead to increased efficiencies and reduced operational costs.”

NCR Retail Transaction Services uses service oriented architecture (SOA) and agile development techniques, object-oriented components and standard web-based interfaces, which enable rapid integration with a retailer’s legacy enterprise system. This eliminates the need for costly and time-consuming custom software development and integration for each customer touchpoint, the vendor added.

“By delivering personalised information, based on a consumer’s stated preferences and presence in a channel, forward-thinking retailers like Unicoop Firenze are changing how they engage in conversations with, and create experiences alongside, shoppers,” said Rick Chavie, vice president, retail marketing, NCR Corporation. “This unification of digital and physical channels will help Unicoop Firenze deliver the converged retailing experience that consumers demand and establish a powerful competitive edge in the Italian market.”

With 116 stores in central Italy, Unicoop Firenze employs around 8,500 people and operates 12 convenience stores, 40 mini markets, 58 supermarkets and six hypermarkets.

Unicoop Firenze also received a prestigious Retail Technology Award Europe (RETA) for the “Best in-store solution” from the research institute EHI for the implementation of NCR STS in its stores.