Dec 18, 2019Baby Atacadão, based in Goiânia, Brazil, stands out for being the only store in Goiás, and possibly in the country, that provides audience separation by spaces: Pink World for girls and Blue World for boys. The company serves its customers with varied products, and with different prices and models to accommodate different budgets and tastes.
Considered a multifunctional store, Baby Atacadão serves customers seeking such products as strollers, cribs, wardrobes, bathtubs and more. Despite being a street store, it remains open for business every day of the week, including on holidays, thus accommodating shoppers who have no time to shop during regular business hours.
Now, the company has something else that makes it stand out: its use of radio frequency identification. Prior to utilizing smart tags, the company based its decisions on its managers' wholesale experience. The store had no automatic inventory-control process in place, only a visual method. RFID has completely changed the way in which its employees work, improving the way it stocks, buys and sells goods, and making its processes more agile.
RFID readers were installed in portals in both Blue World and Pink World. Reading is accomplished as shopping carts pass by those portals. Two Zebra Technologies FX7500 readers are in use, with two iTAG antennas and a BlueBird RFID collector. ITAG's Model 7 × 2 labels, with Impinj Monza R6 chips, have been placed on all products in stock.
The challenges for reading to take place on schedule were many, according to the company. A lot of questions have arisen, Baby Atacadão notes, but the process is going well thanks to advice received from the iTAG provider via Whatsapp. The decision to deploy RFID was made after Baby Atacadão's executives traveled to São Paulo and viewed Brascol's RFID-based processes in action.
Once the technology was implemented, the company began to notice the system's benefits, which included faster sales, improved inventory control, simplified systems integration and a reduction in errors involving invoice issuing. The company's goal was to implement the technology for 100 percent of its products, including at the inventory and factory levels.
The RFID process works like this: The company buys products from suppliers and prints RFID tags using a Zebra ZD500 label printer. It then performs an inventory check-in process via the RFID portal, which is equipped with the Zebra FX7500 reader and iTAG's Monitor application. The product is then moved to the sales area, where customers can choose what to buy and proceed to a cashier, at which time another RFID portal reads the selected products' tags. The store also performs RFID inventory counts using the BlueBird collector.
At the beginning of the deployment, the company faced several challenges with the new RFID-based processes. But now, its employees are learning more and are enjoying the system, the firm reports. Baby Atacadão's deployment does not follow GS1's EPC UHF passive standard since the firm has opted to use its suppliers' codes.
