Store of 1970 here at last!;

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"gtore of 1970"
here at last!
by William D. Power
The retail industry is in the throes of one of the most
revolutionary changes in its history—the conversion
from the faithful mechanical cash register that has
served it for almost 100 years to the electronic terminal,
or, to use the jargon, the point-of-sale device.
A PREDICTABLE CHANGE
The "Store of 1970" mentioned in the title of this ar­ticle
is an inside joke at Touche Ross. It refers to the
Retail Presidents' Conferences we developed for the
National Retail Merchants Association beginning in
1964. The central theme of that program was a hypo­thetical
store of the future full of electronic wonders, and
for the next five years or so we presented it many times
in the U.S., Europe and Mexico. We called it "The Store
of 1970" because in 1964 that seemed far enough away
to be "the future." The future doesn't have to be too
many years out to qualify in the area of computer tech­nology.
With that short explanation, you can understand now
when I say that the Store of 1970 has finally arrived—two
years late, it appears. But not really, because in 1970 the
death knell of the mechanical cash register could be
heard clearly. Forward-thinking retail companies were
placing orders for electronic units for new stores and
planning for the conversion of registers in existing stores
over the next several years. When Sears placed a re­ported
$70 million order with Singer for electronic reg­isters
(and supporting minicomputer systems) the faint­hearted
among retailers were convinced that the time
had come.
Many more have followed suit—almost all of the big
names in the department store group—Penney, Ward,
Allied, Federated, Macy, Gimbel, May Company, Dayton-
Hudson, Broadway. In fact, to be fair, one has to say that
some of them preceded Sears in installation, though
probably not in preparation.
Discounters have not been asleep, either. They saw
the electronic terminal as a solution to their lengthening
checkout lines, their increasing need for unit sales in­formation,
and the pressure on them to offer credit.
Barkers, Korvettes, Woolco, Target (Dayton-Hudson),
Treasury (Penney), Grandway (Grand Union) and more
have installed electronic units and others continue to
join the parade.
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