Business Value of RFID in Department Store Retail

Based on the data gathered from an RFID department store apparel trial, which was conducted within the Metro Group Future Store Initiative, this dissertation project tries to answer the question: What is the business value of RFID in department store retailing?

In the scope of the project, a department store was equipped with hundreds of antennae and RFID readers, for example, at different chokepoints, in shelves, in fitting rooms, and at the point of sales. This infrastructure enabled the team to record during 16 months, the movement of more than 100.000 item-level tagged clothing items on their way from the goods issue in the distribution center to the point of sales on the front floor. The co-operation project went beyond a classical feasibility study. The preliminary findings show that RFID is not a mere barcode replacement technology, offering potential for the optimization of operational processes, such as inventory taking or bulk checkout at the POS, but that it offers novel insights and hence potential for improvement in the areas of category management, store layout management, and inventory management. Moreover, undetected intransparencies can be made visible in the area of in-store processes and new knowledge about customer behavior on the sales floor can be obtained.

SNF Forschungsprojekt