RFID Solution for Retail
Today most retailers are involved in mass merchandising and offer similar products, services and prices. Competitive advantage often relies on merchandising selection, availability, marketing, cross-selling, promotions, customer service, operational efficiency, and protection of both merchandising and store property. A promising technology for effecting gains on all of these dimensions is Radio Frequency identification (RFID) that promises to change the way business is conducted making the whole process much simpler and quicker.
Benefits of RFID in Retail Management
Unlike EM systems (electro-Mechanical) and EAS (Emergency Alert systems), which have been used in shops for decades, RFID-based systems move beyond security to become tracking systems that combine security with more efficient tracking of materials throughout the Retail wing, including easier and faster inventory-stock verification, Point of Sales, Supply chain management and managing customers also.
- Point of Sales
- Customer Management
- Security- Checking un-authorized movement
- Stock Verification
- Merchandise Management- spoilage/expiration, obsolescence, misplacement
- Out-of-Stock position
Point of Sales
At present items are identified and registered one-by-one by POS (point of sales) whether it is done manually or using the barcode reader. With RFID system, multiple items can be scanned by the desktop scanner without exposing the label to the reader (unlike barcode). It reduces the time to generate the bill and gives better experience to customers by cutting queues.
Customer Management
Customers can be identified by just flashing the card in front of RFID scanner. Once the bill is generated, customer purchase details are recorded in the server. The store can offer loyalty discounts, benefits etc once the customer achieves the minimum quarter/annual purchase and expiry.
Security- Controlling un-authorized movement
Once an item is purchased, the tag is removed by the staff. Gate Antennas at the exit counter reads all the items passing across it and raises an alarm in case un-purchased item is moved out. Shrink, resulting from employee theft, shoplifting, administrative and paper error, and vendor fraud are huge concerns of retailers that RFID can address. According to the University of Florida's 2002 National Retail Security Survey (Hollinger & Davis, 2003), retailers in the USA alone lost US$31.3 billion to shrink. A 2003 report by Ernst & Young estimates a higher amount - nearly US$46 billion annually.
Stock Verification
With the help of our wireless hand-held reader item details can be picked up by bringing it near to the items. It can collect data of thousands of physical inventory which can be later on matched with the database. RFID can reduce the verification time from a week to half-a-day helping your staff to give more time to customers.
Merchandise Management
RFID would enable stores to track how often a particular item was removed from a shelf, rack, container, or promotional display for inspection and even for how long it was removed. Frequency and length of handling merchandise could be correlated with actual purchase of the item to learn whether shoppers were merely interested in the item or whether their inspection led to a sale.
Notification could also be generated when RFID-tagged merchandise is approaching an expiry date, becoming obsolete to newer models or seasonal change, or 'going bad' as indicated by sensors attached to the merchandise. Store personnel could move that time-sensitive merchandise to the front of the shelf, reduce its price to promote faster sale, or ship it to a store with greater demand. It also equips you with information like fast moving items, slow moving items, items picked up by customers, items- which are not picked up by the customers to allow you in taking necessary measures like increasing the item visibility, reducing the price etc.
Out-of-Stock/Shelves position
A study by the Retail Association of America, the Food Marketing Institute, and CIES (Gruen, Corsten & Bharadwaj, 2002) showed that out-of-stock conditions average 8.3% and cause a typical retailer to lose 4% of sales. In a typical retail environment, it’s very difficult to know whether a particular item is in store or ware-house. Retailers never get to know that items are out-of-stock/shelves and needs to replenish immediately. Smart-shelves antennas can monitor the items on shelves and issue an alert if a particular items go-off-the shelf notifying quick replacement.
Real time benefits of RFID
Wal-Mart made its first RFID-related announcement in months after RFID implementation. The retailer released the results of a University of Arkansas (UA) study which assessed the supply chain effects of its RFID deployment. Commissioned by Wal-Mart but conducted independently by UA, the study yielded the following key findings:
- Out-of-stocks decreased 16% on RFID tagged items
- Out-of-stocks were replenished three times faster on tagged items than on items with only bar codes
- There was a 10% reduction in manual orders for tagged items
Orizin's Products
Orizin provides complete Retail solution with the help of its partners who have expertise in this field for 5-10 years and installation base of around 200 customers each. We have complete portfolio of products including
- POS System reader
- Hand-held reader
- Staff Station
- Gate Antenna
- RFID tags
Software
Our Retail RFID software is the most advanced retail software available in the market. It offers a great deal of functionality with RFID capabilities, including:
- RFID Based Retail Management System support billing, inventory, security, supply chain management and customer management
- Web Based MIS (Management information systems) includes daily/weekly/monthly sales & purchase at various outlets; fast and slow moving items, location- wise inventory details, physical aging of stocks.
- Seamless Integration with Tally for existing tally users
- High Level of Intelligence to discard repetition of data collection for purchase invoice entry, etc
- Graphical Sales Analysis in bar and pie charts for better comparison
- Integrated Email Facilities for mailing customers and suppliers
- Sales and Commission tracking capability