ZigBee Alliance Inks Liaison Pact With Beauty, Wellness Retail Trade Group

The Global Market Development Center (GMDC), a trade association for health, beauty and wellness retailers, will recommend the ZigBee 3.0 standard and its retail components as part of a liaison agreement between GMDC and the ZigBee Alliance, said the groups Thursday. GMDC members can leverage ZigBee 3.0 in their supply chains and across systems controlling the in-store experience to cut costs and improve product quality, tracking, marketing and merchandising, said GMDC CEO Patrick Spear. ZigBee 3.0 also will give retailers new ways to increase customer loyalty by implementing personal shopping assistants and gateways, intelligent shopping carts, asset tracking systems and energy management solutions, merchandising and marketing systems and pharmacy services on one network, said the trade groups. Also via ZigBee 3.0, retailers can gather information about customer shopping behavior, track inventory and monitor temperature and humidity from the warehouse to stores, they said. The ZigBee 3.0 standard includes device definitions specific to retail service applications along with definitions for sensor and actuator applications that allow retailers to build integrated custom solutions using standard components, they said.