Abstract:

Modern retail is a data-intensive industry competing on a global market, reliant on extensive point of sale (POS) platforms and retail management systems (RMS) connected to platforms and stakeholders outside the organisation. When bricks and mortar stores implement digital technology and major information systems to compete with the online commerce, they "introduce a regime of control that shifts the management of labour from surveillance and discipline to capture and modulation." (Evans and Kitchin 2018). As a consequence sales assistants' work is transforming and traditional skills, such as helpfulness, a winning smile, product knowledge, and the ability to operate a low-tech register will no longer be enough to satisfy customer needs or the demands of the employer. As in many vocations in the 21st century, digital skills are becoming increasingly critical for sales assistants. However, less is known about what these digital skills may involve, or in what ways sales assistants' work transforms. This paper is a contribution to this knowledge gap, a knowledge that is essential for understanding how to design adult and vocational education.

In the study, I explore sales assistants' work in digitalised stores focusing on the customer meeting. Digitalised stores refer to stores integrating digital mobile technology, mobile point of sale platforms, mPOS, retail management systems (RMS), social media and in some cases, e-commerce in the sales work. Using the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008; Mahon, Francisco, & Kemmis, 2017), I aim to answer the following research questions:
• What is happening in the digitalised customer meeting?
• What do digital sales assistant skills involve?

Method:
The paper builds on a qualitative study using ethnographical methods, observation, field interview and field notes (O'Reilly 2004). Ten workplaces from different retail branches (clothes, shoes, hair & beauty, jewellery & accessories) in Sweden, USA and the UK are part of the study that was conducted between 2015-2019. The selection of stores was partly based on contacts established in a previous study of the author (Arkenback-Sundström 2017), partly on the information presented on websites, describing the stores' digitalisation process. When visiting a store, I observed from a distance the sales assistants' work involving interaction with mPOS on the sales floor and at the checkout. To study the interaction with the mPOS, I also made observations as a customer. The observations lasted 10-30 minutes. Then, after presenting the research project for the sales assistant and asking for consent to participate in the study, I followed up the observation with a field interview. Each workplace was visited 1-3 times. In all, twenty sales assistants participated in the study.
The data were analysed using the theory of practice architectures as an analysing tool.

Findings:
One finding is that sales assistants' digital skills involve the ability to managing digital and analogue conversations in parallel during the customer meeting. These interactive skills can be compared with some of the identified learning and behavioural outcomes of playing interactive games in school settings, such as Perceptual and cognitive skills, Motor skills and Affective and motivational outcomes (Connolly et al. 2012).

Keywords:

POS-platform, digitalised customer meeting, mobile technology, sales assistant skills, retail.