Japanese convenience stores adopt RFID technology to help smart retail

　　One of the joys of living in Japan is being able to enter a convenience store at any time to buy snacks, pay for utility bills, or buy some necessities that you really need now. Japan borrowed the American convenience store concept in the 1970s, and in the following decades, it has become unique. There are about 58,000 convenience stores in Japan today, selling a variety of food, beverages and dry goods from a compact space. Annual sales are approximately 11 trillion yen.

　　| What is the next step in food supply chain automation?

　　Smart labels can optimize inventory according to customer needs, improve product transparency, increase food safety and ultimately reduce food waste.

　　Read more But like most of Japan's retail industry, the country's convenience stores are struggling to solve the labor shortage problem, partly because of the declining birth rate. Shops are finding it difficult to follow their famous 24/7/365 plan, and due to low supply, labor costs are rising.

　　Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has reached an agreement with the country’s five largest convenience store companies to implement radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for stores by 2025. By applying RFID tags embedded with unique digital identities to each product, store owners will achieve two transformations: faster, fully automated shopping, and significantly improved inventory and supply chain management.

　　Of course, there are no labor shortages and supply chain challenges in Japan. Grocery stores in the United States and elsewhere face many of the same dynamics, and wise grocers pay close attention to Japan's RFID implementation. Just like sushi, anime, and emoji, what is considered "Japanese" today is likely to become a global phenomenon in the near future.

　　| Implement a five-second checkout

　　Although each brand participating in the Japanese government project will implement RFID in its own way, the technology is expected to open more self-service throughout the convenience store on the shelf. Through the application on the mobile phone, shoppers can scan the product to obtain detailed information about prices, ingredients, purchases, etc. At the checkout, RFID can make all shoppers’ items automatically ring immediately, rather than item by item like a barcode. The shopper’s credit card can be charged through the mobile application. The whole process takes about five seconds-no shop assistants necessary. How do you prevent theft? Simple: If the scanner at the exit detects an unpaid RFID-tagged item, the store door remains closed.

　　| Better understand inventory

　　The shopping and checkout experience is the most obvious benefit of RFID to convenience store customers, but the potential value of more RFID lies behind the scenes, which can build savings and efficiency in store inventory and supply chains.

　　By making each product visible to the store's online inventory management system, RFID tags can more accurately display the items in the shelves and warehouses, greatly improving inventory backlog and excess inventory. It can provide detailed data on individual products in specific stores and regions, enabling more efficient ordering, planning, and pricing. According to a recent survey by the IBM Institute for Business Value, 1,900 leaders in supply chain, operations, and customer engagement indicated that they hope that intelligent automation can increase annual revenue by 10%. RFID tags capture and create data that facilitates intelligent automation.

　　RFID tags can also achieve unprecedented traceability during product recalls, enabling item-level tracking from the source to the retail store, and sometimes even into the consumer's home. In some cases, the affected food batch is within about two seconds, saving critical time and preventing large amounts of uncontaminated food from being discarded. As more and more food manufacturers adopt blockchain technology to record the movement of products in the supply chain, RFID is a perfect complementary technology that can achieve this visibility at the project level and combine information with consumption The packaging is connected. Shoppers can use their phones to scan items to track the entire journey of the product-from the field, pasture or ocean to the store, and every processing and shipping point in between.

　　It is worth noting that the possibilities that RFID creates for automation, a more efficient supply chain and a better consumer experience are not limited to convenience stores and grocery chains. As part of a global food service and facility management company, Sodexo Singapore has recently started installing RFID-based self-service SmartFridge vending machines on corporate and government campuses, schools, and other popular dining options. The company hopes to obtain the same advantages as the Japanese government: to provide customers with a faster and more seamless experience, reduce waste, and reduce employee enrollment.

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