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RFID Crucial Puzzle Piece for Retailers Fulfilling Online Orders from Retail Outlets |
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[08/06/12] Michael Koploy, Software Advice
RFID has revolutionized the supply chain, but is it about to revolutionize the retail outlet as well?
JCPenney recently announced it's working to introduce item-level RFID tagging by February, 2013. By placing tags on 100 percent of items in the store, JCPenney will be able to do a number of things, including improve the accuracy of its inventory counts, and eventually eliminate the cash-wrap station by 2013.
Improving inventory accuracy will also help retailers fulfill online orders from retail outlets. Macy's is one of a number of department stores and big box retailers that have worked to implement this system over the past few years.
RFID is essential to the success of these projects. Macy's chose to go with UHF Gen 2 RFID tags for its implementation, but unlike JCPenney, is only placing tags on its "replenishment items"--inventory that is regularly stocked and resupplied when bought by customers.
While not item-level like JCPenney, Macy's should be able to greatly improve its shipping times and costs by utilizing retail outlets as de-facto distribution centers. Macy's and other retailers will need to utlize a number of other technology investments and operational strategies to take full-advantage of RFID and in-store fulfillment:
Mobile Tag Readers and Scanners. RFID scanners that can integrate with the store's back-end system will be an important consideration for retailers. This will allow store associates the capability to help customers on the floor in addition to fulfilling online orders as they come in.
People counting systems. Because store associates will be given additional responsibilities, finding the right employee-to-customer balance will be key to stores remaining smooth operations. People counting systems are great for finding the right number of store employees that are necessary to properly assist customers during the busiest hours.
Workforce management technology. Once retailers have the ideal number of employees it would like to schedule, it must ensure that employees all show up--on time--and employees with the proper skill-sets are scheduled to balance helping customers and fulfilling online orders. Workforce management technology can help retailers maintain full shifts, track attendance and other important metrics.
Re-structured hiring criteria. Retailers may have to re-evaluate how they hire employees in a store that also fulfills online orders. Associates in these stores must excel at multi-tasking, as well be internally motivated to fulfill online orders quickly and mark inventory appropriately so that the back-end technology can make accurate, informed decisions on where to pull inventory from.
For more on this discussion, check out a more in-depth report from Michael Koploy on the Software Advice blog at http://www.softwareadvice.com/retail/ that discusses retailers utilizing RFID to process online from retail outlets: Want to Master In-Store Fulfillment? Think Like a Warehouse at http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/retail/master-in-store-fulfillment-think-like-a-warehouse-1061312/.
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RFID Component Encoder
A library for Visual Studio and other .NET development environments that enables printing of barcodes and encoding of RFID smart labels and tags at the same time.
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RFID/Barcode Printers
Offers high speed, dedicated thermal bar code label and card printers. Serial and parallel ports are provided on some of the printers listed, and some have USB and Ethernet interfaces.
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