Member Info for Peoplepower1

Battery-free Scanning is Good News for Retailers. Faster, Easier, Greener.

Optical Phusion introduces the Xenon 1902 battery-free scanner from Honeywell. Ideal for retail and warehouse, this ground-breaking product delivers the freedom of wireless without the cost and hassle of replacing lithium-ion batteries.

The Board believes that CAP-XX's technology provides a competitive advantage over existing supercapacitor manufacturers, such as Maxwell Technologies, Ioxus, Nippon Chemicon Corporation and other Chinese and Korean competitors. While the Board has identified other possible competitors, the Board believes that these other companies are unable to match the CAP-XX technology in terms of thinness, power density, energy density and reliability. Most of the Company's competitors only manufacture higher-capacity cylindrical cells used in large package modules and focus on applications where the combination of thinness, energy density and power density are not important considerations for the customer. These competitor products usually prove unsuitable for the Internet of Things (IoT) markets, which is one of the areas that CAP-XX is targeting.

As reported previously, IoT applications, one of the fastest growing segments of the electronics market, provide one of the greatest opportunities for CAP-XX's products. Driven by customer requests, manufacturers are constantly adding to the functions and applications available on IoT enabled devices. This means that power management continues to be an increasingly important consideration. The other important factor is size, as devices have tended to become smaller whilst their electrical power demands have increased. The Company has been successful in winning new business from a range of these markets, such as ABB industrial actuators, E-Ink displays, Itron smartmeters, Ingenico POS terminals, Honeywell scanners, Thales systems, Roche wearable pumps for diabetics, Turck electronic locks, VW dashboards and Yamaha sound systems.

From CAP-XX - Many IoT applications use low power energy sources (small batteries & energy harvesters):-

- ? Connected electronics (smart home, wireless sensor networks)
- ? Wearable electronics (activity/fitness bands, watches
healthcare)
- ? Portable electronics (smart cards, smart tags, key FOBs, handhelds)
... but need to support peak power loads
- ? RF transmissions
- ? E-Ink and OLED displays
- ? Haptic feedback & vibration alerts (with electric motors)
- ? GPS acquisition
- ? Data acquisition, storage, MCU start-up etc

Ossia, E-PEAS, and E Ink unveiled a battery-free wirelessly-powered Electronic Paper Display (EPD) prototype. The companies plan to release this leading-edge technology for commercial use by the end of next year.

Earlier in his career, Golz held several positions at GlaxoSmithKline, including Global Head of Innovation. He then entered the world of startups, joining a healthcare company in London and helping to increase its revenue threefold.

A few years later, after taking the startup to the US, he moved to Spire Health, then a consumer company, and helped it transition to selling exclusively to B2B medical markets. He’s excited to see how the young company will keep growing, especially as it partners with healthcare providers to respond to the crisis.

His London Business School Executive MBA has served him well throughout. He says, “I don’t think I would have been able to get the visas and the top-level position in a Series A startup without the credentials from LBS. From a more operational perspective, even now I’m doing a lot of work on pricing and go-to-market strategy.

That’s good news for telehealth in the US, and potentially for Spire, too. “I think there will be a very long-term impact,” Golz continues. “Doctors and our customers will have a greater understanding and appreciation of how valuable it is to capture physiological data from patients, in a world where you can’t see them as frequently as you did in the past. We are seeing that having high-quality, long-term data can help doctors make informed decisions about a patient’s care, even when the patient can’t get into the doctor’s office.”

Golz has stayed motivated through the pandemic by focusing on the patients that Spire is serving. “Two of the groups that are most affected by this are the elderly and those with chronic diseases, and those are the people that use our sensors.”

Thousands of patients use Spire’s technology; Golz hopes the company is “providing a valuable peace-of-mind service for them, and a valuable service that prevents them from getting really sick.”

“Selling into healthcare organisations is a relatively long sales cycle,” Golz says. “It’s not like selling a car. It takes a lot of time. You need to build up trust.” How does a company selling healthcare technology build trust with a provider that may buy it? “Quite often it is done with at least one face-to-face meeting. I’ve never closed a deal in healthcare where I’ve never met the person face-to-face. It doesn’t really happen.” Of course, in-person meetings have been practically impossible during the coronavirus outbreak.

Spire dealt with the new environment by doubling down on existing clients and trying creative ways to find new ones. This approach had some success: Spire’s core metric is the number of patients who use its monitoring service, and Golz says the company’s weekly recruitment number grew by about 2,000% in one month. At the same time, he knew the company needed a longer-term plan, and it wasn’t clear yet what that would be.

Then, about six weeks into the pandemic, something interesting happened. Smaller healthcare practices started reopening, but many of them weren’t able to see patients, so they were looking for ways to help people remotely. The doctors who had always had too much to do suddenly had a little time to think about the future. And what the future seemed to be bringing was telehealth.

Boohoo is at the start of a big trend which will lead the share price to a much higher level. Strength is very positive, very strong, chart price moved up very strongly, so it's just starting off a big trend.

If Boohoo share price hits 282p and settles above 282p, then the next resistance is 447p. Once over 480p and settles above 480p, then the trend and pace could lead long term to 1478p.

There has been an acceleration in the adoption of existing technology that enables customers to scan their shopping straight into a bag. Used by grocers and in early stage use in Marks and Spencer Food, it has become a win-win in reducing colleague time at checkouts and offering customers a way to reduce contact with others while shopping. Retailers have gone further and added a scan and go option to their app, marrying the already available barcode scanners and payment functionality.

The two parts of a retail operation that take up the most colleague time are serving customers and managing stock. Self-scanning and increased use of self-check-out are helping reduce time at tills, so what can help with stock? The best automation for stock is RFID, Radio frequency Identification. This is a system where every stock item has a unique tag that is quickly read by a radio frequency scanner which transforms typical stock operations.

For example, to log items on the stock file as they arrive at the back door, just point the scanner at the boxes and you have a 100% accurate inventory update. The same works for stock counts and creating fill up lists. You’ll also know exactly where each item is in the store so no more hunting around to find an item for an inter branch transfer or a return.

RFID also has the capability to transform payment, as is currently used by Amazon Go in their payless shopping experience stores and can reduce stock loss too. The challenge before accessing these benefits is the initial investment in IT and getting the whole stock operation ready for RF combined with the ongoing cost of RFID tickets for every item.

Covid-19 driven trading changes are creating an opportunity to review your operation and make investments in automation.

This could be the time for RFID. Online has seen a huge boost over the past weeks.

It took Amazon 22 years to grow from a share price of $20 in 1998 to a share price of $3020 today.

For those of you who don't know much about the Boohoo Group. Boohoo has nine brands, Boohoo, BoohooMan, Prettylittlething, Nasty Gal, MissPap, Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis, Warehouse.

Boohoo bought the American company Nasty Gal for £15m and turned it into revenue of £100m within 2 years. Boohoo increased revenue for just the Boohoo brand itself to £600m within 5 years. Prettylittlething increased revenue to £500m in 5 years. Boohoo bought Oasis and Warehouse for £5.4m and will soon have each of these achieving revenue of £100m. Boohoo are excellent at buying brands out of administration and making them profitable in a short period of time.

Boohoo's goal is to be the biggest global ecommerce retailer for clothes and they'll get there.

Cremebrulee - For me, Boohoo will be the go to Amazon for clothes. In my opinion hold Boohoo in an ISA for 20 years plus and it'll make you rich.

I think I read on here from chrisengland that he bought Amazon in 1998 for $20 a share and sold them years later to buy a house. In 22 years Amazon have grown from a share price of $20 in 1998 to a share price of $3020 today. Wow. What percentage is that? I'm sure someone can work it out and put it on here.

Brian Small, the Boohoo deputy chairman and senior independent director, said: “We are pleased to share the terms of reference for the upcoming independent review into our Leicester supply chain. We believe this demonstrates how seriously we, as a board, are treating the recent allegations into our supply chain.”

He added: “The group is committed to delivering the highest standards of ethics, compliance and transparency.”

Aneesha Sherman, an analyst at Bernstein, said: “Bringing the date forward is a positive for shareholders, creating a faster path towards getting some clarity and certainty on the magnitude of the problem, as well as outlining the steps that will be taken to resolve it.”

Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management - Investment Advisor/Hedge Fund
Jan 3, 2020 (Report Date) 54.5m (Holding) Increased by 15.3m (Change - up) 12.39 (% Held)

Marlborough UK Micro Cap Growth Retail - Mutual Fund
Dec 31, 2019 (Report Date) 24.5m (Holding) 0.0 (No Change) 5.57 (% Held)

Marlborough Nano-Cap Growth Fund - Mutual Fund
Dec 31, 2019 (Report Date) 15.5m (Holding) 0.0 (No Change) 3.52 (% Held)

Quilter Cheviot Investment Management - Investment Advisor/Hedge Fund
Sep 9, 2019 (Report Date) 48.5m (Holding) Increased by 22.6m (Change - up) 11.03 (% Held)

Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Management Limited - Investment Advisor
Sep 28, 2018 (Report Date) 48.3m (Holding) 0.0 (No Change) 14.90 (% Held)

Ruffer LLP - Investment Advisor/Hedge Fund
Jan 3, 2020 (Report Date) 30.0m (Holding) Increased by 30.0m (Change - up) 6.82 (% Held)

Newlands (David John) - Individual Investor
Jan 3, 2020 (Report Date) 25.0m (Holding) Increased by 10.8m (Change - up) 5.68 (% Held)

Barclays Capital - Research Firm
Sep 28, 2018 (Report Date) 16.2m (Holding) 0.0 (No Change) 4.99 (% Held)

Kongats (Anthony) - Individual Investor/CEO of CAP-XX
Jan 3, 2020 (Report Date) 10.0m (Holding) Increased by 333.3k (Change - up) 2.27 (% Held)

Paul Scott was a Finance Director for Retail Clothing before leaving to become a private investor and writing the small cap value report for Stockopedia.

Boohoo (LON:BOO)
(I'm long)

Own factory - an interesting development here. Very clever, I think. BooHoo has decided to set up its own "model" factory in Leicester, making clothes directly for its own websites, and demonstrating best practice. This is great PR I think - as if anyone criticises BooHoo for using suppliers which operate sweatshops, then it will be able to point to its own impeccable factory.

The other aspect of this, is that it cuts out the wholesaler's typical 20-30% profit margin. In doing so, that could make UK production economically viable, even if paying full minimum wage. There might be opportunities to automate some processes too.

My opinion - an interesting development. I see the current depressed share price as a terrific buying opportunity, as there have been numerous allegations against many brands, for either exploiting warehouse, or subcontractors. As long as they're seen to do something about it, then these things quickly blow over.

Well done Boohoo, the only company ever to do an independent review of their supply chain. If anyone can sort this then Boohoo can and will.

Boohoo bought a disused Vauxhall dealership site in Leicester's northeastern corner. The online fast-fashion retailer plans to build a state-of-the-art factory at the site, creating a manufacturing “village” that would set the standard for Leicester’s textiles industry, which supplies 40% of the products Boohoo sells. And if anybody can achieve this, then Boohoo can. For me, Boohoo is a share to tuck away in an ISA for 20 years plus and it'll make you rich.

Boohoo's sizeable war chest of £350m with no debt should allow it to continue buying brands on the cheap. And given the impact the coronavirus is likely to have on consumer behaviour going forward, there’s unlikely to be a shortage of candidates to choose from.

Boohoo’s goal is “to lead the fashion e-commerce market globally.” Based on its solid outlook, I think it stands a good chance of achieving this.

Growth in this financial year is now expected to be ahead of analysts current expectations.

The Boohoo business model is highly efficient, meaning they keep unnecessary overheads to a minimum. They do not have an expensive bricks and mortar retail estate, they do not rely on costly TV advertising, instead they use social media to connect with their customers. Boohoo are excellent at using social media. Whilst other retailers may have to order hundreds of thousands of a garment to fill their retail sites, Boohoo may only order 10s or 100s. They test how it sells and if their customers like it they re-order, therefore unlike many traditional retailers they do not have to carry thousands of pounds stock, which may or may not sell, which is great for Boohoo and great for their suppliers, less unused stock, less waste and more economically viable.

For those of you who don't know much about the Boohoo Group. Boohoo has nine brands, Boohoo, BoohooMan, Prettylittlething, Nasty Gal, MissPap, Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis, Warehouse.

Boohoo bought the American company Nasty Gal for £15m and turned it into revenue of £100m within 2 years. Boohoo increased revenue for just the Boohoo brand itself to £600m within 5 years. Prettylittlething increased revenue to £500m in 5 years. Boohoo bought Oasis and Warehouse for £5.4m and will soon have each of these achieving revenue of £100m. Boohoo are excellent at buying brands out of administration and making them profitable in a short period of time.

Boohoo's goal is to be the biggest global ecommerce retailer for clothes and they'll get there.