Organic Clothing Retailer Makes Shopping Personal

Shoppers have been enthusiastic about the system, Fiumano says, and many have chosen to create an account to help them—and the store—track their interests and purchases. "Most of our customers are between 18 and 25," he explains, "and they are very comfortable with technology." He adds that all ages, however, come into the store, often simply out of curiosity, because the signage describing organic products and the technology's video monitors and antennas are clearly visible from multiple floors in the atrium. "It definitely has a wow/coolness factor," he says, adding that the software is designed to make it easy to make changes to inventory, such as adding or removing content as stock levels change.

Frank Fiumano, Clothing for a Better Earth general's manager

The entire system was first conceived by Destiny USA, which approached Terakeet to provide a platform that would allow the use of RFID technology for tracking shoppers, while enabling them to gain additional information regarding the products they shop for. Terakeet then brought Time Domain into the project, to develop the UWB real-time locating system.

This is the first phase of the deployment, Danial says. In the near future, the store plans to open an automatic checkout kiosk that will enable customers to purchase items without queuing up at a sales counter. The reader would simply capture the ID number on each item's tag, and access credit card information that customers would input into their account on the store's Web site, or a patron could simply scan her credit card, and that transaction would be complete. Danial says he would also like to see the passive UHF EPC Gen 2 tags be used for tracking inventory as it leaves the manufacturing site, and as it enters the store. What's more, he would like to set up a system in which products could be tracked at any point within the store—currently, this only occurs when they pass near an RFID reader.

Initially, Terakeet built a prototype that it tested in a lab setting, before setting up the system for Clothing for a Better Earth. Danial hopes to see other retailers come to the store to test the system. "We wanted to set up a playground of sorts," he says. "We wanted to create a place rich with technology, so brands could try this out."

Terakeet and Time Domain decline to reveal the system's cost, adding that each deployment will vary according to the number of iPods, video monitors, and RFID readers, antennas and tags used. Clothing for a Better Earth plans to install the system at its permanent store when the time comes to move in. It also intends to open additional shops elsewhere that will also incorporate the technology, though details regarding that development have yet to be determined.