RFID provides automatic replenishment function for Dutch retailers,RFID Animal Seal wholesale

　　RFID provides automatic replenishment function for Dutch retailers

　　Clothing retailer Wild Store has deployed RFID-based solutions in its two stores in the Netherlands to enable automatic replenishment of products sold in physical stores and online. The solution is provided by Israel's RFKeeper company and includes EPC UHF RFID inlay built into the tag, electronic tags attached to each product, desktop and handheld readers, and cloud-based software. This RFID system can provide inventory reliability and realize automatic inventory replenishment.

　　Wild Store reports that this technology can ensure that product inventory in online stores and physical stores is accurate. The solution went live in May of this year and is being piloted in its distribution center and two stores in Dintel Oder and Houfen.

　　Employees use handheld readers to read all marked items in the store

　　Wild Store is a family clothing retail business, established nearly a century ago under the name of De Wildt Family Fashion; today, the company is still owned by the De Wildt family and sells clothing and shoes for men, women and children. Wild Store sells products in Dintel Oder and Houfen in the Netherlands, and has opened a distribution center in Odenbosch. It purchases goods from suppliers and transfers them to the store as needed. In 2013, the retailer officially launched its online store and started a modern business.

　　Recently, Wild Store not only hopes that its online store can ensure the accuracy of product inventory (only display its existing products), but also hope that consumers can buy the desired products in nearby physical stores. Wild Store has been preparing to deploy an automatic replenishment plan, not only to ensure that the product will not be out of stock, but also to ensure that when customers buy a product online and want to pick it up in an offline physical store, they can pick up the product at the store. .

　　According to Arjan De Wildt, the great-grandson of the company's founder and current boss, in order to be able to use accurate data to automatically facilitate replenishment orders, Wild Store began researching RFID technology in 2017. He said: "We are interested in RFID because we need to work with some suppliers for automatic replenishment work." The company has also introduced an electronic data interchange (EDI) system to ensure that the goods are automatically replenished when the inventory reaches the minimum value. .

　　However, the company found that replenishment orders are not always accurate. De Wildt said: "We have experienced automatic replenishment of the product size or color is not what we need, so I started looking for another solution." If barcodes are used, employees need to check the store every two to three days. All the products in the company are counted once, so the company only counts once a year.

　　De Wildt recalled that this is usually not enough to guarantee 100% inventory accuracy because products may be stolen or lost. The company found that the accuracy rate of inventory counting at the end of each year is only 79% to 80%, which is not enough for automatic replenishment or online. Buy. So he started looking for RFID suppliers. He said that one of the biggest challenges is the need to seamlessly connect RFID-based software with the company's existing point of sale (POS) and inventory management systems.

　　In the end, the company reached a cooperation with RFKeeper, and its software can be integrated with Wild Store's existing inventory management and POS systems. Wild Store uses hard tags as electronic commodity anti-theft (EAS) tags for its products. During the merchandise sales process, these hard tags are removed from the merchandise, and then shipped back to the distribution center to be reattached to the new product.

　　The Wild Store now uses the same kind of hard tags, but has built-in RFKeeper's EPC UHF RFID tags. These tags are attached to all clothing and shoes when they arrive at the distribution center. Because RFID is built into reusable hard tags, employees do not need to pay extra work for RFID tags for each product. RFKeeper's handheld reader can be used to scan and debug label information and connect it to each product. When the staff read the tags, they write the barcode serial number on each tag. When the two IDs are asked, this can provide the connection between the RFID number and the product.

　　At the time of shipment, the fixed desktop reader can capture the label data of the goods and transmit the collected label reading data to the software of RFKeeper. The software will analyze the data and forward it to the Wild Store's own management software. , And then update the inventory data to show the newly-appearing products, and connect the new product data to the store that needs to be shipped to. Next, customers can view and order these products on the website.

　　Store personnel use Nordic ID handheld readers to scan all marked items in the front of the store, usually once or twice a week. When the customer checks out, the detacher used to remove each hard tag will also read the RFID tag of the product sold and connect the product data with the purchase information. At the same time, the Wild Store software will update the inventory of the product. If the sales information shows that the inventory of the product has dropped to a minimum, the system will automatically place a replenishment order to the supplier; at the same time, the reader will delete the barcode number in the RFID tag, so that the hard tag can be reused.

　　90% of Wild Store's products come from suppliers. So far, suppliers have not labelled the products they have produced and will be shipped to the Wild Store, although retailers want to see this change.

　　Stores can also use handheld readers to find lost items. For example, if a customer is looking for a specific size, color or product style, the staff can enter this data into a handheld device and use the data in Geiger counter mode to locate the desired product.

　　When the store uses a handheld reader, it can access and update cloud data in real time by connecting to Wi-Fi. De Wildt said that almost every time a handheld device is used to find a lost item, it can be found within a minute. This function of the reader reduces the risk of loss of sales, because without this function, customers may not be able to buy the designated ready-made goods in the store.

　　De Wildt said that since the solution was put into use in May, “this allows us to have a more complete automatic replenishment plan, because we can know that there are suitable sizes and colors in the stock products. In addition, customers can get it when shopping online. More accurate product data and clearer sales locations. This way we will not disappoint them. These are our important sources of benefit."

　　De Wildt said that the RFID solution makes the POS process faster because it can read all the product label information on the counter at one time, instead of scanning them one by one. But De Wildt recalled that the biggest challenge was the connection between the software systems. They set up an FTP server for sharing data, and then ensured that the information was collected in the appropriate categories for easy sharing with the existing software in the store.

　　Looking to the future, De Wildt's company is looking for new use cases for RFID. "I think in the long run, there are other aspects that can also use RFID, such as self-checkout or smart mirrors that integrate RFID technology."

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