Mercari Products Have Great Potential, Experts Say

The Latin invasion facing northwest Arkansas’ dense retail supplier population has nothing to do with Ricky Martin or Christina Aguilera. The hottest sound in retail is the talk surrounding Mercari Technologies Inc. in Fayetteville.

Mercari, the Latin infinitive verb meaning “to trade,” is releasing its third Internet-enabled application that helps retailers prevent missed sales. The yet unnamed 3-D visualization application gives suppliers and store chains the ability to move their planning sessions, now mostly done via conference call or in person, to an online market place.

Robert Stassen, a professor of retail in the University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business Administration, is a former colleague of Mercari co-founder Matt Waller. Stassen said that regardless of his friendship with Waller, the potential for Mercari’s products is huge.

“More so for small suppliers and retailers, InitiaLink, NeoCtex and [Mercari’s] visualization applications really level the playing field in the area of management,” Stassen said. “They eliminate the need for many of the tasks that are being done by hand right now. A lot of small retailers can’t do a lot of supply-chain management by themselves right now, but this means they won’t have to.”

Stassen said the biggest ramification of Mercari’s breakthroughs for the local area may be the demise of “Vendorville,” a nickname hung on Benton County by The New York Times Magazine.

“These applications are so superior to anything else out there, they could eliminate the need for vendors to locate here,” Stassen said. “Typically, suppliers ask retailers like Wal-Mart to handle supply-chain management for them. But this would mean the suppliers and the retailer could work out strategies cooperatively over the Internet.

“The applications are so advanced, they don’t take expertise from either side. So in terms of saving labor costs, why would a supplier need to locate a team of 6 or 12 or 70 people here, all making six-figure salaries? They could be anywhere, and probably only a few would be needed.”