Through the years, RFID has found opportunities in a host of markets, but none more important than retail. The ability to have insight into inventory, from making sure that customers can pick up the products they want to allowing retailers to know exactly what’s in stock and what is selling, is essential to a successful business.

RFID has been around a lot longer than most people think. For example, Nedap pioneered RFID technology back in 1973, and the company is a leader in RFID for retail and other markets today.

Founded in 1929 in Amsterdam, Nedap has served people with technology, contributing to their professional lives for more than 90 years. In 1973, Nedap started pioneering RFID technology. Out of this, Nedap Retail was founded.

“Nedap Retail was founded with the mission to make it simple for retailers to always have the right products available, at the right place at the right time,” said Robin van Stenis, director of global marketing at Nedap Retail. “We do this by helping retailers achieve perfect inventory visibility, with zero waste and no losses.”

Nedap is structured into seven business units, serving markets such as Healthcare, Retail and Livestock. The Nedap Retail business unit is focused on Apparel and Footwear, Food and Grocery and Health and Beauty.

It is often said that the “jeans wall” was the initial use case of RFID, as clothing store owners looked to replace jeans into the right size shelves.

“Apparel was the first retail vertical to widely adopt RFID technology to solve inventory accuracy issues,” van Stenis observed. “This evolved into solving inventory visibility in the supply chain, from product manufacturing to store distribution.”

One aspect that has changed is the way that RFID data is recorded. The cloud has made data collection and analysis a lot more efficient and convenient. Nedap has been in the forefront of the use of the cloud for RFID; today, Nedap’s iD Cloud platform has since been deployed in more than 10,000 stores across the globe, which van Stenis notes makes Nedap iD Cloud the fastest growing and largest RFID platform available today.

“In 2016, we launched our in-store RFID solution iD Cloud, which has now evolved into the Nedap iD Cloud Platform, a source to consumer platform,” said van Stenis. “One of the major differentiators is that iD Cloud was built as a multi-tenant, cloud hosted platform.

“Basically, our Nedap iD Cloud Platform was developed in the cloud, while the competition built its architecture with an on-premise solution in mind,” van Stenis added. “This has been a crucial difference as iD Cloud has been able to offer real-time insights from the get-go.”

Even with all of the successes of RFID, there still remains hurdles as it looks to grow. Van Stenis said that quanitifying the core business case is one of those issues. 

“This might be the biggest challenge as the possibilities with RFID are endless,” said van Stenis. “The solution is to start with a strong foundation by building a business case that is focused in store.”

Finding partners who see the possibilities and are able to scale and support rapid advancement is also key. For example, Nedap was able to deploy RFID in 750 Carter’s stores within a period of three months.

Andrew Tashiro, senior director of omnichannel at Carter’s, spoke about the value of RFID in announcing the deployment.

“With RFID, we can offer a broader assortment of inventory available to our customers opting for in-store or curbside pickup,” Tashiro said. “In addition to improving the customer experience, better inventory management through RFID is an important tool to deliver increased profitability in our retail business.”

RFID requires changes to store operations, and this effort must not be underestimated.

“Having a solid change strategy is critical to gain buy-in and support to implementing RFID,” said van Stenis. “Andrew Tashiro, senior director of omnichannel at Carter’s, said having customized support from the team at Nedap was key in executing a smooth implementation that allowed Carter’s to complete the deployment to more than 750 stores in three months.

Expectations for the Future

Van Stenis sees great opportunities ahead for RFID and for Nedap.

“RFID is starting to become a no brainer in apparel and footwear retail and with the recent news of Walmart expanding its use of RFID technology to improve inventory accuracy, the spotlight will continue to shine on new use cases and other retail verticals,” said van Stenis.

“With the ongoing adoption of RFID, the consumer demand for omnichannel services and the need for retailers to find new ways to enhance their store network, stock accuracy and visibility are vital,” added van Stenis. “Retailers must be able to present store stock online without overstocking and meet customer demand in all channels while safeguarding margins and minimising waste. You can expect Nedap to accelerate into the future as we continue to meet the needs of an evolving retail landscape. For us that means continuing to create solutions that help create perfect inventory visibility with zero waste and no losses. Because that’s our vision for every retailer in the world.”