An essay about how technology has influenced retail has earned a Co-op manager a place in an international awards final in the United States.
Mr Alex Ho, the assistant manager at the Co-op in Sutton-on-Trent, who is through to the final of the Global Convenience Industry Achievement Award. (280710MW1-3)
Mr Alex Ho, 31, of Newark, who works at the Lincolnshire Co-operative’s store at Sutton-on-Trent, will present his work to a panel of international retailers in Atlanta in October.
Mr Ho will be among finalists in the Global Convenience Industry Achievement Award, competing against entrants from New Zealand and Canada.
He earned his place as winner of the 2010 Association of Convenience Stores UK Achievement Award.
The competition is open to staff from any member of the association aged 21 to 36 and attracts entries from retailers across the country, including the Co-op, One Stop and Londis.
To win Mr Ho wrote a 4,000-word essay, which was presented to a panel of judges made up of industry leaders in London.
In his essay, Mr Ho had to answer a question about the use of technology in convenience stores and how it could be improved and extended in the future.
Mr Ho said: “In the essay I looked at how shops have developed over the past 100 years.
“Tills, barcodes and even fridges and freezers are just some examples of what has changed.”
He said he also looked at technology that had started to emerge over the last ten years in the convenience sector such as electronic shelf-edge labels, fingerprint identification systems and in-store radio.
He looked at technology being developed such as radio frequency identification tags, which are microchips that go underneath barcodes containing information about the product.
Mr Ho, who has also worked at Newark’s Barnbygate Co-op, concluded that although there were advantages to new technology, such as greater efficiency, a key to a convenience store’s success was staff who knew their customers.
He said: “Our shops are part of the community; our staff know their customers’ names and their shopping habits.
“If you replaced all your staff with technology you would lose that. You would be ripping the heart out of the local community.”
