Beyond using RFID in our credit cards, item-level RFID on garments is being utilized to allow retailers to reduce the “friction” that exists at checkout
Right now, we are witnessing a new era of retail where technology and commerce are joining together to revolutionize the customer experience with retailers. With more retailers implementing new technologies to improve their business operations, many are finding new and innovative applications of existing, tried-and-tested technologies to offer solutions to daily challenges. RFID technology is one of the technologies being applied in inventive ways to enhance a retailer’s operations.
RFID technology is rapidly gaining adoption within the retail industry around the globe as it is dramatically improving inventory management. After the initial investment and returns are being realized by using the technology, retailers are now looking at additional ways to leverage the investment in RFID to further gain competitive advantages and solve operational bottlenecks. The most common place retailers are looking to focus on next is changing the process of customer engagement at Point of Sale (POS) moving to automated and human free checkout. RFID at POS is transforming the overall customer journey through the last step of a store visit to make this quicker, more accurate and smoother than ever before.
Enhanced Check-out Solutions
Beyond using RFID in our credit cards, item-level RFID on garments is being utilized to allow retailers to reduce the “friction” that exists at checkout. The process used at checkouts today across apparel, footwear, fragrance and cosmetics, and home goods retailers is the same as it has been for the last 30 years. Barcodes are scanned one at a time and a card is swiped to complete the financial transaction, creating time for queues to build up. With the awareness that the convenience store model which the Amazon Go store generated, apparel retailers and customers are beginning to expect something as close to that as possible in their experience. While the optical systems used in Amazon Go are not applicable to the high SKU variability environments of apparel, this friction-free and self-checkout experience is going to be part of this New Era of Retailing and RFID is the technology being chosen to further develop this.
Today, most customers don’t know that RFID is being used to keep out of stock levels down. Using this technology at POS is one aspect where the customer can have direct exposure with the new technology and it can help provide a positive differentiated experience for the consumer.
Source: Using item-level RFID at Point of Sale will change the customer experience at checkout