BOSTON — Vision 2025 is the latest addition to the “intellectual capital” provided by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Total Store Expo.

The look into the industry’s possible future will join Meet the Retailer, Meet the Market and insight sessions in provoking thought at the NACDS event next month at the Boston Convention & Exhibition ­Center.

“It’s something that we brought to TSE because we at NACDS have an obligation to stimulate people in all areas and at all activities when they’re with us,” says senior vice president of member programs and services Jim ­Whitman.

The Vision 2025 exhibit will be at the show floor’s entrance near the product showcase and the NACDS-TV studio, which will provide full broadcast coverage of the four-day trade show and strategic exchange.

“It’s going to be a very dynamic, active area that people can visit when they have some time, or schedule appointments for,” says Whitman. “People may want to go on their own or as part of a team, or make repeated visits. They may have general or specific interests.”
Vision 2025 will feature technology platforms, displays and interactive experiences covering two broad areas, pharmacy and business. It is the result of a partnership of NACDS with Checkpoint Systems Inc. and Kantar Retail.

“We are pleased to be partnering with two industry thought leaders who can help deliver on our objectives in providing forward-focused opportunities for attendees at the NACDS Total Store Expo,” said NACDS president and chief executive officer Steve Anderson.

“As the industry prepares for the implementation of provisions of the Drug Quality and Security Act [DQSA] in 2025, we believe that Vision 2025 will help demonstrate what the industry — including the pharmacy and other departments in retail stores — may look like in 10 years. Additionally, we know that retailers will continue to be laser-focused on serving as solution-providers for consumers’ evolving wants and needs.”

Checkpoint will delve into the implications of virtually all products in drug stores being serialized within the next decade. It will illustrate how pharmaceutical companies, distributors and pharmacy retailers can leverage radio frequency identification (RFID) to comply with DQSA.

“DQSA is going to improve the safety of the pharmaceutical supply chain for all stakeholders,” said Farrokh Abadi, president and chief operating officer of merchandise availability solutions for Checkpoint Systems. “Our Merchandise Visibility Solutions are already making a compelling difference for apparel retailers and brand owners, and we look forward to delivering similar value to pharmacy retailers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors as well, as they plan for the new federal regulation.”

Checkpoint will also examine what serialization means to inventory visibility within a store, a company and a supply chain, says Steve Perlowski, NACDS’ vice president of industry affairs and member relations. “How can a retailer use serialization in stores and in an omnichannel world?” he asks. “The answer is that when a customer orders a product online the retailer will know what store has that product down to the unique item level.”

Looking at a retail shelf, Checkpoint will be able to show how RFID can impact operations, whether by managing inventory, finding out if a product is misplaced, or seeing how to stock faster, adds Perlowski.

In the pharmacy, Vision 2025 also will demonstrate inventory management down to the bottle level so that a retailer will know how many pills should be in a bottle at all times.

Kantar Retail will provide a multi-lens and multimedia view of retailing’s future, with an eye toward the major trends impacting the industry in the convenience, beauty and health care space, and the omnichannel arena. It is bringing in an 18-foot video wall for virtual reality. People will be able to look at different possible interior formats showing different ways of merchandising.

“It could be what the inside of a store will look like, and Kantar will give you the rationale for it,” says Perlowski.

Brian Gildenberg, chief knowledge officer at Kantar Retail, says, “Our vision for the future will focus on delighting shoppers in 2025 with an eye toward what they care about and how to meet their retail needs, as well as managing the ‘Store Of The Future,’ demonstrating best-in-class operational and analytic technologies to optimize tomorrow’s supply chain."

Kantar Retail anticipates these key elements to be focus areas of its presentation:

• Consumer 2025 – what a much more diverse consumer will expect from the retail ­experience.
• The “endless shelf” and ideas on what best-in-class solutions will look like to bring a world of assortment to a small space.
• Convenience Reinvented — what will make the shopping experience faster.
• Demonstrating the technologies/services that will be available to help shoppers identify and treat health conditions.
• In-store displays in health and beauty — understanding the future of physical fixtures and how they can help entice incremental purchases and tie to the virtual world.
• In-store automation techniques and how the free flow of information can truly optimize store management and product flow.
• Brainpower — what do the analytic capabilities of retailers and suppliers look like to optimize this complex world?
• The virtual store — how real will the experience be when shoppers are shopping in “nonretail environments?”

As part of Kantar and advertising and public relations firm WPP, Kantar Retail will be using a number of partner companies to bring this vision to life – notably Red Dot Square, experts in virtual reality merchandising, and WPP digital innovation agency Rockfish, which has deep expertise in both consumer-facing technology and retail automation technology ­platforms.

Companies can proactively call Checkpoint or Kantar to make an appointment, says Perlowski, noting that Checkpoint or Kantar may be calling them.

“It’s flexible, it’s developing,” Whitman says of Vision 2025. “Pieces of it may mean something to some and more to others. The vision piece of it is to stimulate thought processes about how things can work in an individual’s or company’s world.”

He sees the initiative as an extension of the new ideas brought by several companies at last year’s expo in areas such as shelf labeling.

“We’re trying to experiment and show people different possibilities,” he comments. “If you’re looking that far out, the industry is not that defined. We’re not trying to set definitions or limits. Its always going to be evolving.”

NACDS has no defined outcome in mind for the program Whitman stresses. “It’s presenting possibilities of where things are going. Our job is to provide food for thought. It’s not one-size-fits-all.

“You can look at the four walls of today, but every executive is thinking about where the four walls can be tomorrow and that’s where the vision comes in. We’re trying to break the mold. We’re letting people use their imaginations.”

Vision 2025 will be open in conjunction with the show floor, Sunday noon to 5 p.m., Monday 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Tuesday 8 a.m. to noon.