Over the years, there have been evident improvements in the retail industry. More stores are utilizing RFID technology to improve daily operations’ overall efficiency. When your business implements RFID technology, it ensures accuracy and efficiency when counting and tracking inventory.
What Is Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)?
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) utilizes electromagnetic fields to identify and track RFID tags with scanners. It’s one of the modern identification and location technologies utilized in various industries. The tags are usually small and can be attached to machinery, electronic devices, vehicles, or any physical object. Over the years, tracking technology has already become part of the retail industry, especially wireless RFID scanners.
When RFID is used in the retail industry, it can substantially aid in preventing theft and monitoring products that are regularly transported and frequently overlooked. It significantly aids retailers in tracking inventory from the warehouse to the storefront.
How RFID Scanners Boost Your Point-Of-Sale Business
In recent years, retailers have been implementing RFID technology to ensure product availability by significantly improving the overall accuracy of inventory. Most retailers utilize RFID for inventory and supply chain management visibility. Adopting the technology also allows for optimizing other store processes such as data-driven loss prevention, efficient checkouts, and dealing with various types of fraud at the point of sale.
It might be time to utilize RFID technology if you’re running a retail business. Here are some ways RFID scanners can help your point-of-sale (POS) business run more smoothly.
Improve Product Visibility and Availability
RFID inventory assessments are an absolute necessity for retailers. It allows companies to achieve product visibility across retail stores and warehouses. The speed at which RFID can monitor inventory and measure stock can help lessen labor for your workforce, especially with the manual task of checking the stocks.
Ensuring the availability of products, especially during peak periods, is crucial in keeping your retail sales up. Most retailers are frequently responsible for having minimal stock availability throughout their stores, which is unpleasant for customers wanting to make in-store purchases.
In-store customers complain about the lack of available products and long queues. By utilizing RFID technology, it serves as a real-time solution in the replenishment processes.
Shorten the Checkout Process
One of the challenging hurdles for the majority of retailers is harmonizing online and offline customer experiences. One of the main benefits of online shopping is you no longer need to wait in line at the checkout.
An RFID solution may be crucial in speeding up the checkout procedure, which greatly contributes to a positive customer experience.
Adopting an RFID solution speeds up the in-store checkout and gives store employees more time to focus on customers’ needs or process order pick-ups and orders. When utilized at the checkout process, it cuts short the transaction time.
Reduce the Likelihood of Return Fraud and Sweethearting
Return fraud, in general, is a type of shoplifting in which a consumer seeks to return a stolen or used item to the store in exchange for money. RFID can prevent this fraud because employees can readily detect whether a certain item went through online or in-store processing.
When it comes to sweethearting, it’s an internal fraud that occurs when store employees give products to family or friends. An example is when a friend of an employee checks out two shirts while the employee only scans one product while removing the security tags from both shirts. When your business has RFID technology, it can help prevent theft since deactivating the security tags only happens automatically during the payment process. Due to this, the store employees can’t remove the security tag of a product manually.
Allows for Convenient and Safe Mobile Self-Checkout
Like the process for employees on assisted checkouts, RFID technology utilizes less time. Additionally, the RFID-enabled checkouts ensure a high level of convenience since customers can put their baskets in the self-checkout station. All items are generally recognized individually in seconds, cutting checkout time by more than half while cutting down the risk of customers forgetting to scan items.
If your retail business uses traditional systems, you can’t simultaneously implement mobile payment solutions and security products. A cloud-based RFID platform works differently since it secures products that go through mobile self-scan checkout solutions. Generally, it automatically recognizes sold and available items at the exit. Once the payment has been completed, the loss prevention systems will no longer sound an alarm at the exit.
Provides Data in Real-Time
RFID technology enables the effective use of data, allowing retailers to better leverage data on products. Analytics allows you to ensure your products are in the right place for your consumers. Information on which stores perform best or worst is an important key performance indicator (KPI) in retail. Still, you can gain better insights with specific item data by RFID.
Additionally, RFID technology can provide critical data on how well products perform in stores and specific details such as the sizes that sell best. The insights can help you make better decisions, such as when to stock specific products.
Final Thoughts
Running a retail business requires time and effort to ensure all operations flow smoothly and efficiently, especially if you manage several stores. Implementing RFID technology brings about several benefits, such as boosting efficiency, better inventory visibility, and improved product availability, to name a few. In the long run, RFID technology will help ensure the growth of your point-of-sale business in no time.