Mar 16, 2015Spanish footwear company Munich Sports is using passive EPC ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID technology to connect its customers with information regarding shoes on display, saving them time they would otherwise have to wait for employees to search for shoes in the back room. The system—consisting of Keonn Technologies' AdvanLook interactive displays and cloud-based software, integrated by software firm Gescode—also offers information about other products in which customers might be interested while they are shopping in the store.
Since the system was installed in October 2014 at a single Mini Munich children's shoe store in La Roca Village, near Barcelona, the technology has been popular with customers, says Xavier Berneda, Munich Sports' general manager. The system has increased the speed of the shopping process, he reports, while also making workers more productive and boosting the store's image for innovation.
Munich Sports is always seeking new ways in which to improve the customer experience at its store, and thus spoke with Gescode, its point-of-sale software provider, about technology-based solutions, according to Andrés de la Dehesa, Gescode's general manager. Gescode had already installed Keonn products for some of its retail customers, he says, and recommended the AdvanLook system.
For the past several years, Keonn Technologies has been developing and offering RFID-based technology solutions aimed at improving the shopping experience, increasing store revenue and freeing up sales clerk time. Such systems include the AdvanMirror, designed to display an image of a person wearing a garment he or she is holding, based on the label's RFID tag ID number. The company's AdvanRobot, a remote-controlled reader slated for commercial release this year, is designed to travel the aisles of a store's back rooms, reading tags on shelves more efficiently than workers might do be able to accomplish using a handheld reader.
But according to Ramir De Porrata-Doria, Keonn's co-founder and CEO, the greatest interest from retailers is currently being generated by the AdvanLook solution, released in 2014. That, De Porrata-Doria suggests, may be because the solution is relatively low-cost and easy to install, making it a good first step for companies that do not employ RFID within stores, or that utilize the technology only for inventory-tracking purposes.
AdvanLook is a recommendation system that can provide a shopper with additional product information without requiring aid from a store representative. The interactive display panel, which measures 41.3 inches in height, 13.8 inches in width and 2.6 inches in depth, can be placed in a recessed wall. It comes with a built-in UHF RFID reader, antennas and a computer, as well as a video screen that is typically mounted at eye level and is available in three sizes: 22 inches, 42 inches and 46 inches (diagonally).
Last year, Gescode's de la Dehesa launched a new project known as the 720 e-lab, in collaboration with Barcelona Moda Centre (the Barcelona Fashion Center). "It's a space where we and other partners are showing how a store of the future will look," he explains. "We have been working there with Keonn, and we started to develop an integration between AdvanLook and QuickSports PRO, our retail software solution. When Munich got interested in installing AdvanLook on their stores, things went fast."
Traditionally, De Porrata-Doria explains, when a Munich Sports customer finds a shoe on display that he or she likes, that person must locate a sales representative and ask if that shoe is carried in his or her size. The worker must then search the back room while the customer waits. If the shoe is unavailable, the representative could suggest other possible alternatives, and then return to the back room to collect them, or retrieve other styles that the shopper has selected from the display shelf.
Munich Sports wanted not only to spare customers from such waits, but also to help its staff focus on selling footwear, rather than having them waste time searching through back-room shelves for out-of-stock shoes.
With AdvanLook, each shoe on display has a passive EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID tag attached to it between the insole and the midsole, at the shoe's heel. Munich Sports is currently using Smartrac Web tags. When a customer picks up a shoe of interest and carries it to within a few feet of the AdvanLook interactive display, the device reads the tag ID. Keonn makes its own RFID reader, De Porrata-Doria says, with a built-in ThingMagic module and an Impinj reader chip.
The AdvanLook software, known as AdvanCloud, resides on a hosted server and manages data about each tag ID, as well as the back-room inventory. The back-room data is received from Munich Sports' existing point-of-sale (POS) software, provided by Gescode, which integrated the AdvanCloud software into the POS system. The AdvanLook software links the shoe's tag ID with an image of that product, displaying it on the touchscreen. It also provides a host of options, such as a listing of sizes for that product, as well as other colors and similar shoes that might be of interest. Customers can use the touchscreen to select the option they would like, such as a specific size and color of a particular shoe model. The system then identifies whether that product is available in the back room, based on data in the Gescode software indicating what is being sold. If it is available, the shopper can use the touchscreen to request that shoe, by sending a message to the store's staff.
The AdvanCloud software also provides additional options to customers who may want to share their shopping experience with others, or store it for future reference. They can either e-mail themselves information about that shoe by typing in an e-mail address, or share it on social media—either Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
The solution not only aims to boost sales by making it easier for shoppers to find the items they are looking for, and by presenting ideas for other purchases, but it also has a secondary benefit, De Porrata-Doria reports: The system collects historical data so that the store knows which items are of most interest to shoppers. Without such a system in place, a store currently knows only how many of a particular product is sold, but not how often customers viewed that item. With the AdvanLook data, the store can determine that a specific item is of great interest but is not being purchased, and can then research why and potentially make that product more desirable. For instance, the item might be priced too high, or the most popular sizes might be unavailable.
Because the software is cloud-based, it can be accessed by a retailer's managers so that they can, for example, determine what products are of greatest interest at which locations. Management can also update the content whenever a new collection of shoes is released.
The AdvanLook system has also been installed at a Barcelona clothing store operated by Roberto Verino, which adopted Keonn's AdvanMirror two years ago (see Roberto Verino Store Allows Shoppers to Wear Garments Virtually). The store continues to use the AdvanMirror, De Porrata-Doria says, to enable customers to see an image of themselves wearing apparel they like. Jackets, pants, blouses and other garments each come with an attached RFID tag. When a shopper takes a garment to the AdvanLook touchscreen, the reader captures its ID number and links that item to an image of a model wearing it. The system also allows the shopper to view that garment with other available items, such as a blouse with pants or a skirt. If interested in that ensemble, the shopper can then request help from a salesperson to find those clothes so that he or she can try them on together.
Munich Sports next intends to begin using the RFID tags to track inventory, as well as to speed purchases at the point of sale. "We plan to install AdvanLook in other stores," Berneda states. "We truly believe that its use can give us numerous advantages in different departments—and, in the next years, we will be attentive to new developments emerging in this area."
