Retail Technology Show review – focusing on proven technologies

Originally published on The Retail Bulletin

There was plenty of realism in evidence at the recent Retail Technology Show at London’s Olympia as many retailers revealed their focus was on building-out solutions using proven technologies rather than being distracted by committing heavily to the likes of AI during these times of tough trading.

Tried-and-trusted technologies

This focus on using tried-and-trusted technologies and solutions within the supply chain is also recognised by many retailers now working with Dean Frew, president of RFID solutions division at SML, who says a growing number of retailers including Asda, H&M, Tesco and Matalan are leveraging value from their RFID implementations.

“The fastest growth area is in the DCs where RFID is being used to read the items in every case because a single digit percentage of boxes will be inaccurate. It could be 50% of boxes that are not right and contain the wrong goods,” he says.

Once retailers have RFID in their stores then they are looking to then go into the DCs to monitor their incoming stock. “A lot of retailers are starting to tell vendors [suppliers] they will penalise them for wrong cases and only pay for correct ones,” says Frew, adding that this also ultimately helps with the ability of retailers to handle C&C in stores. Without RFID as many as 50% of such orders are cancelled through a lack of visibility of inventory across channels.

Such technology has largely been adopted by fashion retailers to date but this is changing, according to Frew, who says the likes of department stores are looking to place tags onto soft home-ware items, cooking utensils, sporting goods and then lastly fragrances and cosmetics.

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