While perhaps most famous for its edgy marketing campaigns, publicly traded American Apparel also managed to gain unintended notoriety throughout its 24-year history as an easy mark for theft – so much so that a novel was published in 2009 under the title, Shoplifting From American Apparel. So, in 2011-12 the company got serious about combating product shrinkage with installation of comprehensive RFID systems in all of its then 280 retail outlets, making it one of the last major U.S. clothing retailers to adopt comprehensive anti-theft RFID technology.
As installation was completed from store to store, American Apparel reported drops in internal shrinkage of up to 75 percent at some outlets, and overall shrinkage reductions of 55 percent, yielding significant improvements to its bottom line. But achieving the goal of 100-percent inventory accuracy through item-level RFID tracking can do far more than answering the negative challenges of inventory shrinkage – it can deliver positive opportunities for leveraging alternative retail strategies and provide customers evermore shopping opportunities.
Even as American Apparel was belatedly deploying RFID strategies to cure runaway product shrinkage, Zebra Technologies was already hard at work helping retailers’ perfect RFID strategies in answer to a new-era of retail challenges, including integration of e-commerce order-fulfillment systems into existing brick-and-mortar outlets. With e-commerce projected to approach 10 percent of the U.S. retail market by close of 2015 (up from 6 percent in 2012), traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are working to offer customers the added convenience of online shopping for items already distributed to in-store inventories – a strategy only made possible by the 100-percent inventory accuracy and visibility of item-level RFID tracking.
For a nominal pennies-per-item investment, RFID tags can deliver critical item data, such as style, size and color, as well as real-time item location, all retrievable via a hand-held reader from up to 30 feet from the item – and all while recording the transaction that initiated the item query. Imagine, delivering industry-leading online-order fulfillment from inventory located within any physical store or warehouse in the retailer’s outlet network. Imagine offering customers the convenience of browsing and selecting items online during a lunch break that they can pick up in person on their way home that evening, providing the retailer the best of both worlds – closing a sale while the customer is most motivated while still allowing the cross-selling potential of face time with the customer.
It wasn’t long ago that 100-percent inventory accuracy was an impossible goal. No more. Add mobile marketing strategies to the mix and the possibilities are endless.