- California startup Invento provides the payment and inventory system for a new sports arena with RFID as well as spatial intelligence from AiFi.
- The technology enables customers to be identified as they enter and leave the store, as well as being automatically charged for the product they take with them.
A year after launching an RFID system integration business in the U.S., Invento has completed a wide-sale deployment with a California NBA team in the team’s newly constructed stadium. The team has asked to be unnamed.
The system employs a combination of passive UHF RAIN RFID read data from tagged products, and AI spatial intelligence from AiFi to help identify the shopper and automatically process payment information as they walk out of the team stores with their selected product.
Invento is a spin-off from Peruvian technology company T&T Solutions. There’s a family connection—T&T Solutions CEO Ignacio Medina, and Invento CEO Roberto Medina are brothers.
Company Connections
In South America, T&T provides RFID-based solutions for a wide set of markets including mining, textile, tires and manufacturing as well as retail.
On the other hand, Invento specializes in RFID solutions for apparel, fashion and premium liquid products—such as perfumes, liquors and wines. The company offers advanced inventory management, loss prevention, and interactive in-store systems to enhance the customer experience. Additionally, Invento provides solutions for end-to-end digital traceability, brand authentication, and consumer engagement.
For automated payment in the retail space, Invento provides what Roberto Medina calls a turnkey solution that can include RFID reader hardware and tags from partner companies, middleware, software integration to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Point of Sale systems (PoS) , training and technical support.
Combining AI Spatial Tech with RFID
In the case of the NBA team’s numerous stadium merchandise stores, as well as warehouses, Invento’s system tracks inventory as it is received at warehouses, stocked in store fronts and purchased. But first and foremost, it enables seamless, automated purchasing.
With the solution, stadium stores feature cameras at the entrances and throughout the sales floors, along with Keonn RFID readers and antennas at the store doorways. Invento’s cloud-based platform provides item-level inventory data which is leveraged by the AiFi visual system to enhance the purchasing system accuracy.
AiFi makes AI-powered retail solutions, with camera-led special intelligence that tracks people and objects through a space, creating a digital twin. They provide their technology at sites such as convenience stores, groceries and stadium stores.
Roberto Medina said the enhanced solution not only creates a precise approach to just-walk-out style purchasing and efficient inventory management but a robust loss prevention solution for apparel retail.
Camera-based Identification
Camera images can capture data needed for facial recognition, object-identification and customer movement, but have shortcomings related to identifying products that have amorphous shapes such as a shirt, jacket or sweatshirt removed from a rack. If a shopper is browsing through clothing and selects a shirt to purchase, the technology cannot always identify which shirt and what size was removed.
RFID on the other hand, identifies a unique product by reading the identification encoded on the UHF RFID tag. “That’s the beauty of combining the strengths of these two technologies—spatial intelligence combined with RFID is really powerful,” Roberto Medina said.
First a fan of the NBA team, using the system, would download the team store’s app. They set up a profile with their face ID as well as payment information. That data is then stored in the AiFi payment system.
Enter, Take Product, Go
When the shopper approaches a store, the camera captures their face, and can then identify the shopper, and greet them by name on a screen at the entrance. The gate automatically opens and they walk inside. “You don’t need to carry your phone or an ID,” Roberto Medina said.
As the shopper moves around the store, cameras help the system create spatial intelligence around the shopper’s movements, and areas where they are browsing, which helps better identify what their interests and behaviors are.
When they find what they wanted, such as a team jersey, the camera system does an initial identification of the product based on where it was retrieved and puts the item in a virtual cart. The shopper simply walks out the storefront door. The RFID reader confirms exactly what garment and size is being taken, and that data is linked to facial recognition. The shopper is automatically charged for that item.
There are still limitations related to the data management. If multiple people walk out the door at the same time, with a variety of products, the system will not be as accurate, so the stores are set up to let people pass through the gate, single file, as they leave.
Inventory Management in Warehouses
The system has gone live at the team’s main flagship store and nine other small stores throughout the arena. The facility has a warehouse on every floor, where merchandise is stored before being stocked on store shelves.
When arena staff members receive goods, they ensure that they have an RFID tag. For those goods that are not tagged (about 50 percent of the merchandise), staff use an RFID printer to print and encode tags to create a link to that product’s SKU, and then apply the tag.
A Chainway handheld RFID readers is used to conduct inventory counts, as well as to locate specific goods when moving inventory to the stores.
The system went live in July. It integrates with the team’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software. Additionally, Roberto Medina said, “The automatic integration of inbound and outbound data with their ERP keeps the system updated after every inventory cycle and when new products or SKUs are introduced.”
Because of the RFID data capture, the stores know when they or the warehouse are running low on inventory. The software also allows stores to set minimum inventory thresholds to trigger a replenishment order, thereby ensuring products are not out of stock and that e-commerce inventories are accurate, enabling effective online sales.