SURTRADE: Smart Urban Retail Services – Integriertes Service System für den Crosschannel-Handel in der Zukunftsstadt

Andre Ludwig

The project is designed to help the retail sector meet the needs of urban customers and their environments. In the future, actual product-offering will no longer solely be the physical product, but the combination of the product and a number of related services, including logistics services.
The research project SURTRADE is designed to help the retail sector meet the needs of urban customers and their environments. Retailing is no longer a competition between online and offline shopping. Customers switch dynamically between channels, deciding spontaneously how the products should be delivered. Logistics services will be one essential criterion determining customer decisions. To stay competitive, retailers need to grow their online and offline businesses together. The project aims to provide retailers with tools for integrating all the interaction points along the customer journey. It includes developing a cloud platform that integrates the different ‘touch points’ between customers, retailers, and service providers. By adopting a service-oriented design approach from information systems, retailing, logistics, and payment services can be described in a way that facilitates their integration. In addition, apps to support the different stakeholders will be developed. The project is funded by the Federal German Ministry of Education and Research and is coordinated by KLU. KLU’s role focus on the modeling and IT aspects.