Working with Texas Instruments RFid Systems, a worldwide leader in RFID technology, Wincor Nixdorf designed the Future Lab to showcase how RFID creates efficiencies in key areas within a retail clothing store, including when a shipment is received at the dock door, as items are labeled with prices in the back room, for in-store merchandising, in the fitting rooms, and at the checkout. When merchandise is delivered to the store, the incoming inventory, tagged with TIs 13.56 MHz Tag-it smart labels, is recorded as the boxes pass through a stationary RFID reader. Information on each item is compared in real time with the data maintained in the stores inventory management system. Details on goods, such as size, color, and style number, are automatically updated in the system as the contents of each box are read. RFID allows multiple tags to be read simultaneously, without line-of-sight, significantly reducing the time it takes to manually record items as they come into the retail location. In the store, RFID-enabled smart shelves allow sales staff to respond quickly and easily to questions from customers, such as where to find an item in a specific size or color. The shelves in the Future Lab are equipped with stationary RFID readers, which then provide updated location information for each item to the inventory management system as each RFID tag is read. Because this information is available in real time, store staff can more efficiently manage overall inventory, making sure shelves are stocked appropriately. Wincor Nixdorf also shows in its Future Lab how RFID enables targeted advertising, greater opportunities for in-store merchandising, and a more personalized shopping experience for each customer. A reader in the dressing room identifies all items a customer brings inside, and a large display shows multimedia product information, along with suggestions for alternative or complementary combinations of clothing and accessories. Additionally, customers can experience what it is like to check out quickly without waiting in long lines. The check out process is streamlined because store staff can tally the items without physically locating a bar code and passing it over a reader, and they do not have to remove separate EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) tags, as the security function is built into the RFID tags. Customers can also speed the process by paying on the fly, using an RFID-enabled payment token to communicate credit information to the point-of-sale system, completing the transaction wirelessly and securely.
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