Spun out of Pennsylvania State University the same year, Advanced Interfaces has its own niche: video mining. State College, Pa.-based Advanced Interfaces makes software that analyzes video from surveillance systems to glean information about customer shopping behavior and marketing effectiveness, for example.

The company is expected to announce its AI Intelligent Store Environment software at this week's retail show. The suite will include modules for video capture and management, along with packages for analyzing customer demographics and behavior.

Along with the start-ups, there will be plenty of established companies exhibiting at Retail Systems. Several, including Evant Inc., JDA Software Group Inc. and Retek Inc., are expected to showcase tools for improving stores' forecasting and replenishment capabilities.

Inventory management is a hot topic as retailers struggle to find the right balance between buying too much and buying too little. Out-of-stock conditions hover around the 8% rate and cause billions of dollars in lost sales annually, analysts say.

At the show, Evant will detail the deployment results of one of its customers, Camping World Inc. In its first six months of using Evant's replenishment software, Camping World managed to cut its inventory investment by 10% while also significantly reducing out-of-stock conditions, says Chad Selvidge, senior vice president of merchandising and marketing at the Bowling Green, Ky., retailer. Camping World sells camping and recreational vehicle supplies through its 34 retail stores, Web site and catalog business.

Before deploying the software, Camping World conducted a search and found that 400 of its core items were out of stock at one time, Selvidge says. Now its most important items are in stock about 99% of the time.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) also promises to be a hot topic at Retail Systems. Among the users scheduled to share their tales of RFID pilots are Linda Dillman, CIO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; Paul Singer, CIO of Target Corp.; Neco Can, senior director of development at Abercrombie & Fitch Co.; and Mike O'Shea, director of Auto ID/RFID strategies and technologies at Kimberly-Clark Corp.