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How it Started

With the release of the Electronic Product Code (EPC) Gen2 standard in 2008, and the way of communication over the air (air interface) was standardized, it unlocked all the benefits like bulk counting, daily cycle counting (Vieweger, 2021):

• 2008 to 2011: Brave innovative teams started to try out the technology, believing in its potential but taking the risk of failure. They were complex proof concepts aimed to prove that the technology has a future.

Zone24x7 – Involvement/Continuation

• Early-stage RFID Retail prototype and concept development
• Handled RFID Sled (custom hardware designs)

• 2012 to 2014: Enthusiast retailers and consumer electronics companies wanted to deploy and showcase RFID as the next big thing. The approach was using RFID as an early automation tool, unfortunately, the underline core was at its infant stage. This was the “peak of inflated expectations” from a hype cycle point of view and a very important stage in the cycle to showcase concepts and their capabilities.

Zone24x7 – Involvement/Continuation

• RFID Intelligent and Personalized shoe showcase
• RFID Intelligent Smart Hanger

• 2015 to 2017: We started working with numerous retailers and saw the competitive edge in RFID from retail from stock accuracy, labor optimization, buy online pickup in-store (bopus/boss) order optimization, hands-free inventory improved resource utilization. We deployed the technology to our partners to get ahead of their competitors.

Zone24x7 – Involvement/Continuation

• RFID Enabled Price Checking kiosk – XoNe (custom hardware designs)
• RFID Smart mirrors / Endless Isle
• RFID Inventory Robots – Aziro (custom hardware designs)

• 2018 to 2020: The real-world experimenting helped retailers better understand RFID as an omnichannel enabler. This led to the fix and development of the underlining core with the rise of big data and data analysis. Retailers started to see the key foundation for creating next-generation warehousing and retail.

Zone24x7 – Involvement/Continuation

• RFID-based warehousing – item localization
• RFID Vehicle-based inventory tracking (custom hardware designs)
• RFID-based remote warehousing kiosk systems

• 2020 to 2022: With the change of COVID-19, we see retailers moving to micro Omni-fulfillment centers looks like this is the new normal. From a hype cycle view, this may be the “slope of enlightenment” that will push RFID to the next stage.

Zone24x7 – Involvement/Continuation

• RFID warehouse – Sports Equipment Tracking
• RFID based feature design (custom hardware designs)

Benefits of the Affair: It’s all about driving Sales & Lifting Margins 

As you may know now, RFID is a critical element in process of helping retailers gain the visibility and efficiency to obtain the “always-on, always-open” shopping experience basically boils down to getting more products into the customer’s hands. The key is to raise the inventory accuracy by item-level tagging, which enables 95% accuracy in the tracking of every place from back to the front, this raises the inventory SKU accuracy from an average of 63% to 95% and more (Forrester, 2015):

• Improves inventory labor productivity by 96%
• Reduces cycle count time by 96%
• Cuts out-of-stock by up to 50%
• Increases item availability to boost sales from 2% to 20%
• Improves loss dedication
• Enhances stock conversion
• Expedites returns

Finally, the 03 Key Takeaways

• Optimizing for omnichannel operations is key to future retail growth: RFID is a functional technology for delivering the future of retail.

• Findability and Speed that maximizing sales while satisfying customers;

• Don’t fall behind: a growing number of retailers are already using RFIC across several lines of business and reporting great success.

References

• Forrester Research: Customer Desires vs Retail Capabilities: minding the Omni-channel Commerce Gap,” March 2015
• Four Key Criteria to find the Right Stakeholders for a Successful RFID Implementation
• RFID Forecasts, “Players and Opportunities 2016 -2016,” IDTechEx, October 2015