- Retail Reload is offering a tool for collecting digital data about a product not only through its supply chain, but in the store, based on how it is perceived by shoppers, with an app linking RFID and QR Code data.
- The system is in use by some European stores and is now being offered in the U.S. to create a better shopping experience for store customers, but also for store associates.
European software company Retail Reload is combining data from passive UHF RAIN RFID tags and QR codes on fashion products to provide a new sales-associate-assisted shopping model. The goal is to improve customer experience in a brick-and-mortar store, while creating a digital trail of every detail of a product’s journey through the supply chain, the store, and through purchasing.
By leveraging the benefits of inventory management-based RFID tag reads, and QR code scans in stores, the inventory-management and sales app company says it is providing a close view into everything happening to a product on its way to a sale as well as improving the experience for both sales associate and customer during the transaction. The system is poised to reduce delays for shoppers, and to provide them personalized, accurate and measurable service by finding the exact product they are seeking.
By combining an RFID tag and QR code on each product, the technology can track it through the supply chain. An added benefit is that its captures all customer and sales associate interactions that lead to sale of that product, said Yves Curtat, founder and CEO of Retail Reload. The data displays where a product is and its status so that associates spend less time looking for a piece of merchandise that may not be available, and more time completing a sale to that customer.
The company has begun offering its full solution to retailers in the U.S. It is working with a variety of RFID tag providers, including Avery Dennison.
RFID For Inventory Management
As an RFID tagged product moves through the supply chain, the tag’s unique EPC number can be automatically read at key points such as the entrance and exit of a warehouse, loading area, or the back room of a store.
Once at the store, its data can be accessed by sales associates using a handheld RFID reader to capture the tags of boxed goods as they arrive. That helps update the store’s inventory data automatically, without having to individually scan the product tags. The Retail Reload system then updates and shares unified inventory data within the store as well as for online shopping.
From that point forward, much of the product data is forward facing for the customer and sales associates. With the app and QR codes, associates and shoppers can work together to identify a desired product is onsite at the store and find it. If it has been moved, is being packed, or has been returned and is in the backroom awaiting resale, that data is all recorded. The QR code can be used at the point of sale as well. The product’s EPC is both printed in the QR code and encoded in the RFID label.
A New Sales Assistance Model in the Store
Inside the store, sales associates work with a customer to help them locate, try on, and select the right garment. They are armed with the Retail Reload app on their Android or iOS-based device. When a customer asks for a specific product, the associate can look it up in the app and select that item, updating the records of what the shopper is seeking. They can then view its status and where it might be in the store.
That status is frequently updated, each time associates handle the product or transfer it to someone else’s custody (such as packing it to be delivered to another store). By scanning the code, they update data about what they did with that product, where and when.
The data is beneficial for all associates, said Curtat, “since it ensures information about the product is 100 percent right, both in terms of location and its availability to sell.”
Lack of Good Data Preventing Sales?
Lack of data about products leads to sales losses, Curtat added, as studies have found that when customer waiting times rise at the store, the sales conversion rates decline.
When a product should be onsite but can’t be found, it might be in the hands of another associate or being purchased by another customer. For stores with limited inventory onsite, such data is especially critical, Curtat said. The QR code with the Retail Reload system makes it easy to refresh the data in real time, he added.
Tracking Front and Back-Room Performance
The app tracks each transaction and which employees were involved. The app can display details such as when the shopper engaged with a specific associate, when a preparation order for the back room was placed, how quickly it was brought to the store front, and when it was purchased.
With the app, the store knows not only what a customer purchased but what they requested. That could illustrate a SKU with shopper appeal or one that is commonly requested but then not purchased, indicating a probable fit problem. And the technology measures—minute by minute— the efficiency of each sales associate, back stock associate and how their efficiency could be improved.
Retailers typically use the Retail Reload data with their own management software to help drive decision making. “They can mix our data with external data like the online navigation data that contribute to an early detection of the slow moving item,” Curtat said.
Associates use the app regularly, because it provides the reliable data they need as well. “The associate will no longer have to go to the sale floor to search for an item if in the end of the day a colleague placed it in the shop window,” he stated.
Point of Sale for Mobile checkout
The Retail Reload system integrates with the retailer’s point of sale (POS) software which could then enable mobile checkout with a QR code scan either by the customer or the sales associate.
Stores using this feature typically provide POS functionality based on QR code scans, because they are relatively small fashion boutiques, where the average basket is under two items. However at least one larger retailer is provided RFID-based payment stations, since customers typically have a basket of five or more items in it. RFID can read all the tags at once, making the purchasing process faster.
Additionally, RFID is used for returns since the tag when read in the store would indicate if the product was purchased before. This prevents fraud if an individual takes an item from the store that wasn’t purchased and seeks a refund.
So far among its customers, Retail Reload officials say six retailers are leveraging RFID at their sites.