Book here to secure your place and enter K3-2010 to gain free entry. Free. That's a great word.

• Simon Taylor from Action Audio
• Martyn de Young, Project Manager at Age UK, the new charity formed from the merger of Age Concern England and Help the Aged
• Jo Lee  from Bravissimo Ltd
• Ashish Kapoor from Dreams plc
• Kim F McCulley  from Hotel Chocolat
• Paul Forester Monsoon Accessorize
• Lindsay Page  from Ted Baker
• Steve Dudley from Aurum Holdings
• Michael Jones from Bennetts Retail Limited

Thanks to everyone who took part in the survey. Not only did you help support the Retail Trust, but all your responses have given valuable insight into customer interaction within multi-channel operations.

Once you have completed the survey your details will be entered into a prize draw where ten lucky people will win a LUXURY HAMPER ! Even better, you are contributing to a very good cause -  for the first 100 surveys completed £5.00 will be donated to the Retail Trust.

Oh, but it just gets better! As a thank you for taking part The Retail People we will also be sending you a copy of the research report, so you can see what the overall thoughts are out there.

That's 5 minutes of your time very well spent , good luck!

Two of our customers, Carpetright, Europe’s leading specialist carpet and floor covering retailer and Kiddicare, the largest privately owned UK nursery supplier, were recognised at the Retail Systems 2009 awards, at the Grosvenor House in London on October 29th. Carpetright was awarded Retailer of the Year while Kiddicare  won both Multi-Channel Retailer of the year, as well as Overall Winner of the awards.

You can read more here at The Retail Bulletin.

The judges were looking for a company that demonstrated that it knows how to drive traffic and more crucially, sales, from its website. Game took the award ahead of shortlisted M&M Direct and Theshampooshop.com

Well done GAME!

How long does the survey take? Five minutes - about as long as it would take for you to have a cup of coffee. Oh, it's times like these I wish I was eligible to enter, alas....but YOU CAN, so get someone else to make your cuppa and get answering!

The awards were introduced by technology editor for Retail Week, Joanna Perry who noted in her opening speech: “while it is a challenging time, I hope that you will agree with me that there is also a great opportunity for all of you to help your businesses to improve and innovate, to drive out cost, to improve productivity; and to use technology to help you make decisions and deliver service that delights your customers.”

The Retail People are delighted that Kiddicare won two awards during the evening - the 'EPoS Initiative'  award,(Kiddicare, Protouch, K3), and the 'BT Multichannel Integration' award.

You can download and view an earlier article on Kiddicare, featured in Retail Week, from The Retail People site.

Check out the complete list of winners at last night's awards.

Despite the bitter cold and snow on the day, all the members of the team completed the event battered and bruised and happy!

Suppliers handPoint and Protouch signed up early to the free event, keen to take the opportunity to inject some positive thinking back into the collective 'retail conscious'. We look forward to seeing the response to the Retail Business Summit and Spring Fair in February, and fervently hope they can help boost optimism and create new opportunities.

"This year’s Retail System Awards were held at Grosvenor House in London this week to recognise the stars of retail,  celebrating the hard work, commitment and technical innovation in the retail sector. K3 worked with Kiddicare and Protouch design, build and implement 30 colourfully branded Xen X5 Kiosks which offer 19” touch screens, chip & pin and K3’s Kiosk application at Kiddicare’s new store and Distribution centre in Peterborough.  We submitted our project for the ‘EPoS Innovation of the Year’ award and am proud to announce that we WON beating the six other finalists;

• 02 & Torex
• TEsco & Wincor Nixdorf
• Dunhelm & Vista Retail Support
• The Co-operative Group
• The Pier & Agility
• Wasabi & Commidea

This is a prestigious award to win and congratulations go to everyone who had a part in achieving this success, especially our Kiosk team Dominic Manning, Vinee Ly and Paul Baxter."

It's always nice to get a bit of recognition, and we think such a great solution deserves it - so congratulations also to Kiddicare for their progressive approach to technology. Retail Week published an article on the work Kiddicare are doing with K3, which you can download from the The Retail People website. So many retailers restrict going multi-channel to having a website, (and if it's not transactional it's NOT multi-channel).  Kiosks are another channel that are gaining recognition, with their capacity to increase capability in store.

The features that we think are particularly great about kiosks are:

• Customers can view stock, check quantity status, reserve or even pay, at the kiosk (and get all the paperwork such as invoices, reciepts and so on from the terminal). In terms of queue busting and freeing up sales staff this is a great facility.
• It can be branded to fit in with the business branding, and the onscreen look and feel can be configured to replicate the business website. This gives that lovely seamless feel across channels that retailers are all looking for.
• Large items that just don't make sense to display in store, can be found via the kiosks and ordered straight from the warehouse leaving more valuable floor space, (customers  can arrange delivery or pick up via the terminal).