Use of innovative content integration information technology at the point of sale

Abstract

Previous research on the use of information technology (IT) in retail environments has mainly focused on inter-organizational or even intra-organizational contexts, such as the implementation of EDI. There has been far less research on the use of IT by customers, including technology at the point of sale (POS). The provision of customer-oriented IT at the POS implies integrating content in different formats and from different supply chain members in various devices. Therefore, research on such phenomena holds the potential to extend the literature on IT use, blending in perspectives that derive from content integration. This paper uses a case research method to describe the first real-world application of content integration at the POS. Literature on IT use and content integration guide the subsequent analysis. The paper offers some conclusions concerning content integration, customer use, and satisfaction.

Keywords:

• IT use
• content integration
• radio frequency identification (RFID)

Introduction

Trends such as individualization and increased product offerings have characterized a new era in retailing. The resulting variety of product offerings often bewilders customers and leads to increasingly difficult product assessments and purchasing decisions. Retailers have reacted to such difficulties with plans to support their customers in the shopping experience and the subsequent purchase decision. Retailers have thus considered an array of innovative information technologies (IT) at the point-of-sale (POS); this represents a phenomenon to be researched.

Previous works relate IT use to success (DeLone & McLean, 1992, 2003; Goodhue & Thompson, 1995). With regard to difficulties in explaining success merely with IT use and its antecedents, user satisfaction was proposed to moderate the use–success relationship (Gelderman, 1998). However, previous research on IT use within retail has mainly focused on inter-organizational systems (e.g., Boynton et al., 1994; Subramani, 2004) or the use of intra-organizational technology by employees (e.g., Robey, 1979; Levina & Vaast, 2006). With this emphasis on organizational use, research has so far not addressed use by customers.

Missing definite guidelines for rolling out technology destined for customer use in practice, pilots have gathered information on customer IT use and satisfaction to legitimize large-scale roll-outs of the IT (Walker et al., 2002; Walker & Johnson, 2004). This research on innovative IT at the POS aims to fill the gap in the literature on IT use in retail. It intends to extend the existing literature with an understanding of IT use by customers at the POS and consequently retail customer satisfaction from IT use. It further intends to take account of content integration, especially necessary when providing customers with IT at the POS.

The specific objective of this paper is to investigate customer use of innovative IT at the POS. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, it introduces conceptual foundations of IT use and content integration for customer service. It proceeds with an argument for using the case study method, before outlining content integration at the POS in the METRO Group Future Store, the first real-world content integration pilot in a brick-and-mortar supermarket. The theory on IT use and content integration build the grounds for the subsequent analysis. The paper ends with several conclusions guiding the extension of literature on IT use and content integration.

Research method

This research explores the first worldwide implementation of a set of customer-directed content integration devices at the POS, the supporting infrastructures, and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. It investigates the effects of retailers adopting such innovative IT that allows to provide customers with information supporting the purchase decision and to gather information from the store.

The research employs a strategy consisting of research design, data collection, and analysis stages. The research design stage includes a review of the data and content integration literature in order to set the theoretical guidelines for this research. In the context of defining an appropriate research strategy, the paper applies a single fieldwork case study (Yin, 2003). So the details and the complexity of the field could be observed sufficiently (Galliers, 1992).

As the specific research context is a pilot with only limited quantitative data available, it requires a method suitable for an in-depth analysis of qualitative data. Focusing on the ‘how’, a case study is the most appropriate research design (Yin, 1981, 2003).

Mainly qualitative evidence was gathered for the analysis. The research employed multiple data collection methods such as generally available market data and pre-existing firm records (Benbazat et al., 1987; Caroll & Swatman, 2000) and post-project evaluation data. Further, in-depth interviews with senior managers (executive officers, project managers, management consultants, technology consultants) of METRO Group and partner companies (e.g., IBM, SAP, Procter & Gamble, Boston Consulting Group) provided a variety of perspectives on the research topic. Interviews were conducted between February 2003 and October 2004, incorporating management contributions from both the planning and the implementation stage. The informal interviews were conducted in a way that gave respondents the opportunity to speak out frankly without restrictions to specific issues. Interviewees could thereby more adequately reflect the proceedings of the project and emphasize points of perceived importance. Any vagueness resulting from the initial interviews was checked with the respective interviewee if available or with senior managers involved.

Compared to objectified experimental or survey methods, the applied research method implies a certain subjectivity. It may unconsciously be influenced by subjective data gathering and interpretation by either interviewees or interviewer. Therefore, the threat that especially project managers and executives responsible for the project may portray the project in an optimistic light was accounted for by cross-checking with other sources for the purpose of objectification.

Conceptual foundations

Research on customer use of innovative IT at the POS also implies an investigation into the content provided to customers. Such content of interest to the customer comes from numerous sources. Therefore, foundations on (1) IT use and (2) content integration offer conceptual guidance for this research.

A large information systems (IS) research stream has linked IT use with performance in general, that is, has pursued an IT ‘utilization focus’ (Goodhue & Thompson, 1995). Lee et al. (2004) link customer use of IT to enhanced demand transparency along the supply chain. Also, DeLone & McLean (1992), (2003) include IT use as well as customer satisfaction with IT into their model of IS success. In line with the DeLone–McLean model, Gelderman (1998) further investigates the interplay of IS use and user satisfaction and their impact on company performance.

In contrast to linking use to company success, Seddon (1997) argues that use portrays an individual's behavior rather than a success factor and therefore suggests eliminating use from the success model. Including the behavioral view by Seddon (1997), Taylor & Todd (1995) investigate different models towards a common understanding of technology use. In their research, the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989) competes with two theories of planned behavior. However, Taylor and Todd emphasize the value of IT use as a dependent variable, investigating a number of antecedents to it.

Recently, use – and more specifically – frequency of use has been applied as variable in researching several IT phenomena. Measuring frequency of use by end customers makes the following two studies especially noteworthy in the context of this research. Lang & Colgate (2003) analyze frequency of use with regard to online banking customers. They research the link between frequency of use and customer relationship quality. Brown et al. (2006) employ frequency of use in their research concerning the adoption of IT in the household. With regard to individual use of IT at the POS, customers demand a comprehensive privacy policy by the IT provider, declaring the general principles of dealing with customer data (Juels et al., 2003). In addition to measuring frequency of use, Gefen & Straub (2000) suggest user assessments of IT to determine IT use outcomes.

The term content integration is closely aligned with the data integration concept that has been used in the literature for many years. Several authors (e.g., Goodhue et al., 1992; Singh, 1998) describe data integration in an inter-organizational context as a user's opportunity of a unified view on a combination of data from different sources.

Concerning the technical design, data integration means ‘standardization of data definitions and data structures by using a common conceptual schema across a collection of data sources’ (Fang, 2002, p. 16). Data integration aims at establishing consistency and compatibility among data from a number of databases (Martin, 1986; Stonebreaker & Hellerstein, 2001). The complexity of integrating different data and content formats led to research on data format standardization, especially with regard to inter-organizational systems such as EDI (Massetti & Zmud, 1996; Beck & Weitzel, 2005).

Sufficient data integration may decrease uncertainty that is ‘the difference between the amount of information required to perform the task and the amount of information already possessed’ (Galbraith, 1977, p. 5) and thus may lead to improved decision making (Emery, 1982; Mendelson & Saharia, 1986). On the consumer level, innovative IT allowing for unknown levels of information and information processing capacity should support customers’ buying decisions (Korn, 2001).

Increasing digitization and growing supplier databases and repositories demand the integration of structured and unstructured data for more enhanced content (Goodhue et al., 1992). Therefore, the term content integration replaces data integration. Accordingly, enhanced content integration and provision to customers is expected to achieve substantial uncertainty reduction (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Carlson & Zmud, 1999), allowing customers better informed choices and thus purchase decisions. However, sufficient content integration at the POS is still a challenge.

Content integration for customer use at the future store

In 2003, METRO Group, the world's third largest retailer, founded the Future Store by equipping a brick-and-mortar supermarket with state-of-the-art IT for content integration and information gathering at the POS. The Future Store IT included new and established content devices and RFID. Together, they enhanced the shopping experience by providing customers with rich content stemming from inside METRO Group, its suppliers, and third parties such as marketing agencies.

In spring 2002, a small team within METRO Group saw the opportunity to strengthen METRO Group's position as a driver in global retailing. Their goal was to deeply exploit the potential of IT at the POS in retailing and to set new service standards by offering the customer use of integrated content via various devices combined with increased profitability along the value chain.

After short rounds of internal discussion, METRO Group took action in the summer of 2002. Together with several world-class partners including Intel, IBM, Cisco, Fujitsu Siemens, NCR, Philips, SAP, Microsoft, PiroNet, Coca-Cola, Gillette, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Nestlé, and Procter & Gamble, they initiated the METRO Group Future Store Initiative. From the beginning, the Future Store Initiative's aim has been to offer an integrated platform for real-life technical and process-related developments and innovations in bricks-and-mortar supermarkets. The Future Store Initiative kick-off meeting in August 2002 brought up numerous ideas for the front-end, the application layer, and the back-end of a newly designed IT landscape in today's retailing.

One cornerstone was to integrate unstructured data such as pictures for the first time in retail-related IT. While the management of structured data such as prices had been well known since the roll-out of EDI, solutions for unstructured data were so far tested only in system islands. Further, almost all information sources were envisioned also to be made available to customers in the store.

A conceptual structure was agreed upon, grouping all participating providers under four headings. The underlying concept illustrates the main idea for the Future Store (see Figure 1). Obviously, a major challenge was the trade-off between competence-based islands and integrated solutions. Soon it became clear that any Future Store bouquet of new technologies had to be a compromise among partners, technological standards, and data sources (e.g., METRO Merchandise Management System, brand manufacturers sources for offering recipes and related information, and manufacturers’ advertising agencies for providing pictures and videos). Joint efforts by several hardware and software providers as well as brand manufacturers were needed for innovative content provision devices (all of them to be integrated into the overall Future Store landscape) and the supporting, all-inclusive Future Store infrastructures.

Figure 1 Future Store – Conceptual Project Structure, after METRO Group (2005).

METRO Group established three underlying lines of action to be pursued in the Future Store. The first line of action consisted in providing customers with sufficient information in order to allow for ‘Comfort Shopping’, meaning the customer was served any available information at any place in the store, and a subsequent ‘Smart Checkout’, meaning fast and simplified payment and checkout processes. The second line of action was to implement an RFID-based inventory management and to have merchandize checked out of the system as the customer picked it from the shelf. The third line of action implied using electronic feedback from the store as input for several software applications that enhanced the effectiveness of store management. The idea was to provide store managers with the current stock situation, real-time sales information, and prognoses on further sales on display. The three lines of action could only be pursued by implementing a unified information processing infrastructure, consisting of RFID technology, Content Bus (see below), and wireless local area network (WLAN) servers.

Future Store outfitting required seamless and real-time IT adoption to avoid interruptions of the day-to-day business (Marble, 2000; Pinker et al., 2002). The respective technology concept was deployed along the retail supply chain.

With the opening of the Future Store in April 2003 in Rheinberg, Germany, METRO Group turned a former bricks-and-mortar supermarket into an experimental high-tech store. At that time, the Future Store was the only supermarket with integrated new content provision devices and RFID technology, thus making it a real-life test-bed for the future of IT use at the POS.

During the duration of the Future Store project, top-management support offered backing and encouragement from management of different disciplines, such as IT/systems development, marketing, sales, procurement, communication, and logistics. This was crucial as content integration and infrastructure innovations were costly to develop and rarely rendered positive economic results in the short run (e.g., Chircu & Kauffmann, 2000).

Content provision devices

Aiming at informed customers, METRO Group strived to satisfy customers’ demand for a unified view on content so that their shopping became more informative, faster, and easier. For this, METRO Group implemented a set of existing and innovative devices with varying capability for multimedia and interactive content provision. The devices included Personal Shopping Assistants (PSAs), Intelligent Scales, and Self-Checkout Systems. Also, Information Terminals, Electronic Advertising Displays, and Electronic Shelf Labels presented outlets for integrating content at the POS. Further, Future Store's employees were given Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), allowing them to support customers in their shopping processes (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Innovative Content Provision devices in the Future Store.

Personal Shopping Assistants (PSAs) were attached to the shopping cart and accompany the customer throughout the sales room to the checkout. They showed for instance (1) an electronic shopping list, which integrated customer and store information and could be managed by the customer, (2) an overview of goods with prices already scanned for buying, (3) a proposed shopping list based on their previous ‘favorites’, and (4) sales offers and advertisements which changed in the course of the tour through the store depending on the location of the PSA in the store. If customers scanned all articles by barcode, they could directly pay as the data was transmitted from the PSA server to the POS system upon request (see ‘Self-Checkout via PSA’ below). Customer Cards, attached to a PSA, enabled repeat visitors to participate in the ‘Payback Loyalty Program’.

The Intelligent Scale for fruit and vegetables was equipped with a special camera and identification software. Customers only place the product on the scale. Based on surface structure, size, color, and thermal image, the scale automatically recognized the goods via optical identification, weighed them, integrated good-related content from the system, and printed out the label indicating the price. Customers no longer needed to memorize product numbers, they only confirmed the right product identification.

For Checkout via PSA and Self-Checkout, customers scanned their articles via a barcode during the shopping process. The necessary complimentary content was retrieved from the relevant database and provided by the system for checkout. PSAs enabled an easy ‘Pay & Go’ process. Two Self-Checkout Systems were equipped with touch screens, scanners, and payment terminals. Customers could draw each article across a 360° scanner with a barcode reader to register goods. Subsequently, they put the products in a shopping bag that was weighed automatically. The weight was compared to the weight of the scanned goods that was integrated by the system from relevant databases. In case of discrepancies, employees at the information desk were alerted automatically. Payment was either made by cash or by bank or credit card.

Information Terminals were computer terminals providing customers with a variety of content in the sales room. They offered some PSA functionalities. In addition, they provided comprehensive information about selected products such as meat, wine, baby care, fruit and vegetables, hair coloration, or multimedia products covering production, ingredients, sales prices, and the respective location in the store. Integrating content from several suppliers on products with similar identifiers, Information Terminals also presented an overview of product alternatives. Recommendations for recipes imparted additional benefit.

Electronic Advertising Displays, complementing classic advertising, were controlled centrally via the WLAN. They integrated images and video animation content in the direct vicinity of products when customers – who identified themselves via their PSAs – approached them. Advertising messages could be changed within seconds to reflect individual shopping preferences and product tastes and thus enhance marketing possibilities with the use of customized content (see also Hoffmann, 2003).

Electronic Shelf Labels displayed prices at the sales shelves. Compared to traditional labels, electronic shelf labels were not stand-alone. Instead they integrated price information from the electronic price administration system via WLAN and were connected to the checkout system. Each electronic shelf label was equipped with a compact battery, a little radio receiver, and a tiny receiving antenna. As prices were updated centrally, the system provided customers with identical price information at all instances, whether at the shelf or at the checkout, as both systems were fed from the same data source. About 37,000 electronic shelf labels with liquid-crystal displays in four different sizes were in use in the Future Store.

RFID technology

As part of the infrastructure innovations in the Future Store, METRO Group tested the worldwide first application of RFID technology under real-life conditions. It was the first time that a complete network of RFID technology was integrated throughout one entire retail store (Bueker, 2004). RFID tags were prepared by brand manufacturers such as Kraft, P&G, and Gillette and then attached in the Future Store by METRO Group to items or by METRO Group Distribution Logistics to product palettes and cartons included in the test. (For an introduction to RFID technology along the supply chain, see Loebbecke, 2004, 2006; Angeles, 2005; Asif & Mandviwalla, 2005).

Regarding RFID on item-level, brand manufacturers ran several tests in the Future Store. They focused on different functionalities with ‘their’ item-level tags: Gillette experimented with tags on ‘Mach 3 Turbo’ razor blades for theft protection; Procter & Gamble ran tests on innovative marketing concepts for ‘Pantene’ shampoo. Kraft Food, using the example of ‘Philadelphia’ cream cheese, wanted to gain experience with the management of expiration dates and out-of-stock issues. For this reason, the Future Store had several Smart Shelves that were equipped with readers that informed Future Store staff when the shelves had to be replenished. Smart Shelves had bottom-integrated RFID readers and were linked with the central RFID goods flow control system. If an article was removed from or added to a shelf, the display detected the movement and updated the inventory in the system. Thus, the system registered automatically if goods were inaccurately deposited or missing, thereby preventing out-of-stock situations. Smart Shelves also automatically recognized when an expiration date had been exceeded and informed the staff accordingly.

Concerning RFID on palettes and cartons, tagged products and packages could be located and identified all the way from the tagging to the Future Store sales floor. In the Future Store, RFID helped to control if the arriving goods matched the order. When the trucks arrived at the Future Store, the palettes were identified by an RFID reader handling as many as 35 tags per second. Subsequently, the goods were registered as being ‘in the store warehouse’. The goods flow system exactly registered the goods in the warehouse. RFID readers that were located at the warehouse exit doors identified every palette and carton that went into the Future Store. The readers then sent the relevant RFID codes to the RFID goods flow system, which identified the products as ‘transported into the store.’ To avoid duplicate entries, RFID tags on empty palettes and cartons were removed or de-activated.

In an effort to merge the opportunities of RFID technology with the objective of content integration at the POS, the Future Store required a comprehensive infrastructure that was capable of coordinating a wide range of content sources, end devices, and technologies.

Content bus

Stand-alone devices would not offer consistently integrated, valuable content and could not justify the costly set up of the entire Future Store setting. Beyond WLAN, fixed Ethernet, barcode/EDI infrastructures, and RFID technology, a so-called Content Bus served as a technical platform, offering real-time content integration and information gathering in the Future Store.

Running on an application server, the application in a bus structure acted as a metadata repository between data sources and output devices. The application extracted content from individual applications and their respective data sources (content suppliers) and provided the above-mentioned output devices (content consumers) with content in real time. Content from legacy systems such as CRM and ERP was made available for display without fundamental modifications. Conceptually, content provision was decoupled from data sources. Any enquiry protocol was processed, as the connector was modified depending on the specific data source (Wolfram, 2004).

All content metadata was organized in a virtual repository. Performing this task, the Content Bus coordinated requests by the output devices and directed them to the appropriate data source. The Content Bus processed content as the interplay of many individual, granular content components. Similar to large index databases, information remained in its original location and was not duplicated in the Content Bus. Based on an open architecture with standard technologies, the Content Bus allowed for a massive reduction of cost-intensive, point-to-point connections, which were difficult to administer.

Analysis and discussion

IT use by customers at the POS required a sufficiently integrated content offer potentially facilitating better informed choices and well-qualified purchase decisions. Following the literature (Lang & Colgate, 2003; Brown et al., 2006), the analysis and discussion of customer IT use builds on frequency of use as suitable operationalization in the context of customer IT use. Customer surveys (2004, 2004) measured frequency of use and user assessment (Gefen & Straub, 2000) with regard to the Future Store bouquet of innovations (see Figure 3a–e).

Figure 3 Future Store – Customer Survey – Selected Results (Source: METRO Group, 2005; BCG, 2003, 2004, own analysis).

Customers accepted the devices well right from opening day of the Future Store. In July 2003, four months after opening, 77% of customers had used at least one of the new technologies once (see Figure 3a). This number increased slightly by 2% in the course of the next eight months, possibly due to the Future Store's media exposure as the first real-world RFID pilot. Figure 3a illustrates that the Intelligent Scale was by far the most accepted device. It was used at least once by 62% of customers (64% in March 2004). Two devices with low use rates at the beginning, PSA (24%) and Self-Checkout (28%), showed increased use rates after eight months. By March 2004, PSAs had been used at least once by 32% (+8%) and Self-Checkout had been used once even by 42% (+16%). The utilization of Information Terminals showed fairly constant numbers with 48% after 4 months and 51% after 12 months.

The frequency of use illustrated how many of the total customers used the respective device frequently or occasionally, but more than once. The majority of customers seemed to be satisfied with the experience and used the device permanently. In July 2003, the ratio of multiple users over all users was fairly constant between 57 and 59% for PSAs, Self-Checkout, and Information Terminals (see Figure 3a and b). The multiple use ratio (regular users over total users, see Figure 3a and d) for Intelligent Scales reached about 74%. Until March 2004, it rose to 66% for the PSAs, 70% for Self-Checkout, and 83% for Intelligent Scales, but dropped to 42% for Information Terminals.

Customers valued different devices differently (see Figure 3c). We used the following formula to calculate the average valuation by customers. We multiplied high valuations by 3, medium valuations 2, and low valuations by 1. The valuations of all customers concerning one device were summed up and divided by the number of customers surveyed.

An analysis of the average valuation of devices exhibited that customers attributed the highest average valuation to overall Information Terminals (2.51) and specific wine Information Terminals (2.58). With an average of 2.31, Information Terminals for meat showed a lower average valuation. Customers also ascribed a high valuation to Self-Checkout (2.44) and Intelligent Scales (2.33). Even tough, PSAs (2.18) rounded off the strong average valuation, they fell off behind the other devices.

Use data, however, only covered the proportion of customers that spontaneously took advantage of the new IT offered. Hidden potentials of the new IT could be uncovered by data on the value assessment customers attributed to single devices. PSAs were at least of medium value to 81% of the total customers illustrating a hidden potential, that is customers ascribing at least medium value minus customers using the device at least once, of 81 minus 24%, that is 57% (see Figure 3a and c). Self-Checkout with a medium or high value by 87% portrayed a hidden potential of 59%. The hidden potential of Intelligent Scales (25%) was lower to be explained by the strong use numbers of this device. The value assessments for Information Terminals depended on their specific implementations. Specific Information Terminals for meat or wine showed a stronger value attribution (91 and 93% vs 81%, see Figure 3c). Overall, the percentage of at least medium value assessments over all value assessments for Information Terminals (81%) exceeded the percentage of users using the Information Terminals at least once over all users (48%) (see Figure 3a).

At the beginning of the pilot project, skepticism existed about the technology use by elderly customers. Concerning most devices, it turned out that elderly customers use the content integration devices, but not as much as overall customers. PSAs were initially used by 14% of elderly customers at least once compared to 24% of all customers, but the number increased later to 27% compared to 32% among all customers (see Figure 3a and e). Self Checkout was initially at 16% for elderly customers compared to 28% for all customers, but increased strongly to 28% compared to 44% for all customers. Also, the Intelligent Scale showed very strong use numbers among elderly customers. Fifty-six percent of them used it once initially, compared to 62% for all customers. In March 2004, Intelligent Scale use decreased slightly to 52% for elderly persons compared to a slight increase to 64% for all customers. Finally, Information Terminals were used by 41% of elderly customers at the beginning, slightly lower than 48% use among all customers. This did not change qualitatively with 43% of elderly compared to 51% of all customers in March 2004. Special customer support efforts by store personnel and learning effects among elderly customers may reduce the gap to the use numbers among all customers.

Beyond measures of frequency of use by customers, data showed how customers took advantage of the innovative IT and the integrated content. This did not only confirm the literature with regard to improved customer satisfaction (Gelderman, 1998), it also contributed to reducing customer uncertainty (Korn, 2001), and increased sales as a measure of company success (DeLone & McLean, 2003).

Saving information on the PSA concerning the status of the personal shopping kept customers continuously informed about the items already collected and the amount due at the cash register. Customers using PSAs on shopping carts on average bought more than those not using PSAs (13.6 vs 9.7 items). PSA use also resulted in higher sales of € 30.80 vs € 18.00. Thereby, purchase data supported the statement that innovative IT allowed for a better informed purchase decision. Thus, drawing on purchase data as indicator of success, customers using PSAs could be positively associated with success.

Prior to purchase decision, information terminals provided additional information on goods of interest. Beyond the information printed on the scarce available space on product labels, information terminals offered nearly unlimited additional information about product and supplier details, product origins, or production technologies. The additional and comprehensive information supposedly reduced customers' uncertainty, allowing for better informed choices and satisfied customers' desire for more information.

Intelligent scales ensured that the correct information on product quality, weight, and price was provided prior to paying at the cash register.

Centrally updated pricing information displayed on small liquid crystal shelf labels in general assured that customers recognized special offers or discounts. Expiration dates were effectively controlled via RFID technology, making sure that customers only bought fresh food.

Summary and conclusions

This research has investigated customer use of IT at the POS. The IT under consideration was a combination of state-of-the-art content integration devices at the POS in a brick-and-mortar-supermarket, and underlying it, an innovative IT infrastructure.

In order to reach frequent IT use by customers at the POS, the entire IS needed to sufficiently integrate content in the innovative IT devices. A high-tech infrastructure behind the IT devices at the POS facilitated the provision of integrated content to customers with a comprehensive and unified view of the data at the POS (Goodhue et al., 1992).

The literature on inter-organizational IS such as EDI (Massetti & Zmud, 1996; Beck & Weitzel, 2005) found that content provision from several sources demanded standardization of data formats. In this research, content provision beyond the necessities of EDI required industry-wide harmonization of data standards for various output formats. Therefore, to further foster and ease the integration of external content, that is, content coming from supplier organizations, production of custom content such as photos or even videos had to obey to common data standards.

The research indicated that customers will use innovative IT at the POS, specifically content provision devices. It corresponded with Korn (2001) suggesting that the provision of sufficiently integrated content triggered use by customers, and in turn improved customers' purchase decisions. Better informed choices at the POS positively influenced customer satisfaction.

Even though the research demonstrated that elderly people used innovative IT at the POS less than the average customer, universal resistance among elderly customers could not be attested. Instead, the research suggested a hidden user potential in all age groups. Such potential users seemed to act positively upon triggers such as demonstrations, customer games, or tutorials in order to reach positive anticipation and perception of IT use and thus ultimately to turn into users (Hackbarth et al., 2003). Therefore, resistance by customers to use IT could turn out to be an issue of initiation and involvement.

The research also confirmed Juels et al. (2003) that only a strong privacy policy and protection of data exploitation by third parties assured customer satisfaction and extensive IT use by customers. In our research, customer use of IT also depended on transparent and open communication regarding the impact of technology use and the handling of issues of customer data and privacy.

Finally, in spite of convincing insights regarding on the relationship between IT use at the POS and company performance in real-life settings, our research findings ask for additional quantitative studies. In addition, longitudinal approaches could draw a picture of how the consumer behavior changes with increasing use of IT at the POS.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claudia Loebbecke

About the author

Claudia Loebbecke holds the chair of Media Management and is Director of the Department of Business Administration and Media Management at the University of Cologne, Germany. During 2005–2006, she served as President of the Global Association for Information Systems (AIS). Her vita and publications can be found under www.mm.uni-koeln.de.