Retailers worldwide are benefiting from utilizing Senitron’s RFID technology and offerings specifically designed for retailers, giving them the competitive advantage needed to operate more efficiently while having accurate inventory, which leads to better sales.

Once RFID is enabled, everything becomes easy; Doing inventory cycle counts becomes a breeze, where personnel can quickly walk around and wirelessly read inventory from distance with their handheld RFID scanners, at speeds of up to 900 items per second. Once inventory scanning is done, with a simple click the inventory is uploaded to the Senitron cloud dashboard, where the inventory can be compared to the POS or ERP inventory, and then with a simple click, the corrected inventory counts are push back into the POS / ERP.  Finding specific inventory becomes super easy by using the mobile RFID Geiger proximity finder, or the software’s mapping visuals. Transfer’s between retail locations become fast and easy using the transfer-slip modules. Fixed RFID readers auto-detect inventory movement with the retail space, as well as monitor the exists of unauthorized inventory leaving. Real-time alerts and reports. 

Best of all this works with any POS / ERP software, such as Lightspeed POS, NCR Counterpoint, Retail Pro, QuickBooks, and Microsoft Dynamics.

Per our motto “We make RFID easy” retailers quickly realize how easy it is to take advantage of RFID technology. Upon signup, Senitron quickly ships RFID-related hardware, such as mobile handheld RFID readers, RFID Printers, RFID labels, and fixed RFID readers. Once received Senitron go-live specialists work remotely with the retailer for a few hours to configure, test, validate and train on the usage of the software and hardware.

Inventory management is something that keeps the retail store run efficiently. The process of managing retail inventory is done either by hand or electronically. Doing it with the latter technique makes things easier and faster. Every retail store must have a clear set of procedures that must cover how inventory-related tasks should look after. Retailers all over the world are benefiting from Senitron’s RFID technology. With a wide variety of choices, such as hand-held RFID inventory scanning/reading, hybrid solutions with fixed hands-free RFID for the entire location, or checkpoints such as sales floor / back stock. This solution can be used with any POS such as Lightspeed POS, Retail Pro, or CounterPoint.

RFID solutions for retailers offered by Senitron offer great visibility of the supply chain. It also eliminates the risk of under or overstock, errors in the supply chain, or any sort of shrinkage. Overall, the system contributes greatly to a better customer experience. RFID solutions for retail is primarily based on radio-frequency technology, and it is encoded in smart tags and are captured by the reader.

The data is processed by the software used for retail inventory management, and it enables the professional to track the overall sales process with real-time updates. The software also helps in keeping all the details of the customers and the supplier in on commonplace. It also involves details like sales floor replenishment, inventory counts, inventory check-in, product locator, etc.

Hand-Held RFID Solution for Retailers

The #1 benefit of RFID solutions for retail is that it enables inventory cycle counts to become 2800% faster than any other method. It is the simplest, fastest, and most cost-effective way to attain this benefit. Simply start applying RFID labels, and use hand-held RFID scanners as often as desired to count the inventory. The inventory counts can be synced into any POS, and or the POS quantities can be downloaded into the RFID for comparison before being synced back into the POS software. The solution is compatible with all POS software, such as LightSpeed, Retail Pro, and Counter-Point. These RFID solutions for retail ensure smooth and faster tracking and lead to better productivity for any retail business.

The RFID retail inventory management system from Senitron has great demand among different retailers and for many good reasons. It has helped them minimize the errors in inventory that were mostly human-based, helped to enhance the store's visibility, diminished shrinkage from loss of theft, and has offered many more benefits. Senitron offers end-to-end solutions to track merchandise starting from the warehouse to the check-out counter at the store. Our RFID solutions for retail have a combination of flexible software and a wide range of hardware that helps to ensure complete tracking of the assets.

Hybrid RFID Solution for Retailers – Hand-Held RFID + Hands-Free RFID

For us at Senitron, hands-free RFID is a solution that has the ability to easily pinpoint the location of an item in a store without any human effort. We also offer handheld RFID that makes the overall functioning of the retail business smooth and hassle-free. The handheld RFID retail inventory management system helps with the physical counting of inventory or assets, commissioning RFID tags to the assets, handling exceptions processes, locating assets, inspection reporting, maintenance processing, and much more.

Once a retail organization has adapted to using RFID for doing inventory using hand-held RFID scanning, the next evolution for the technology is to add fixed RFID sensors to important areas, such as sensors in the back-stock to sales floor pathway so that the system can distinguish when items move from one zone to another, which can help set off replenishment alerts. Fixed RFID readers can be added at the exits to distinguish when items leave the premises and assist in theft alerts. Some retailers also prefer to cover the entire retail space’s interior with sensors that can live track items inside the space and provide real-time mapping as things move around, which is desirable for large-space retailers.

Though highly rewarding, the retail business is also highly challenging. There are numerous worthy competitors for the retail dollar, and retailers must always be willing and able to adjust course when needed.

In order to stay competitive, most retailers have learned to adapt by lowering expenses and working smarter. A key component of this is to create easy retail inventory management solutions.

To work smarter, retailers must have an accurate inventory at all times so they can:

  • Prevent overstocking items that may not sell
  • Stock more of the items that do sell
  • Have a keen understanding of which items to put by the door for increased sales
  • Easily restock sizes and colors that are sold from the back stock
  • Quickly reorder to replenish sold items

 

The Senitron Solution

The Senitron Solution is an exciting addition that solves the retail inventory conundrum. Retailers can enjoy real-time inventory thanks to Senitron’sfixed, patented RFID technology-driven solutions.

The Senitron Solution entails installing ceiling-mounted RFID readers that fully cover any retail environment and regularly feed information about inventory counts to the Senitron server.

This setup solves a major problem for retailers. Knowing what items are in stock at every minute and where items are located on the sales floor and in the back is infinitely useful. This live and constant flow of information provides intelligence to retail stores that were never before available.

The Senitron Solution can answer questions that retailers have, such as:

  • What’s in stock
  • How many piece are available of a particular item
  • The number of items available in each color or size
  • Information about back stock

More than just providing answers to these questions, the Senitron Solution is almost omniscient in its knowledge of what’s happening on the retail floor.

Replenishment

A customer heads into your retail store and buys a yellow vest, size medium. As soon as the vest is sold, the Senitron software sends a replenishment command to your employees, asking them to restock the yellow vest on the floor; the system sees that there is the back stock of yellow vests.

Once the vests are restocked, the replenishment request auto resolves. The employee doesn’t need to tell the Senitron system that the item was restocked because the system sees that. It’s easy to see how this system can reduce the burden on managers to command employees. Instead, these types of concerns become automated for the retailers.

Even if you’re a retailer with hundreds of stores, you no longer have to worry about managers spending time restocking inventory as you can rely on RFID retail inventory management solutions.

Misplaced Items Examples

Customers often walk into a store looking for a specific item, and the inventory system indicates the item is in stock. But where is it? In the past, employees would have to scavenge for items while under pressure with the customer looking on.

With the Senitron system and retail inventory management solutions, items can be located anywhere on the sales floor or in the back stock with the touch of a button. Even if that item is among a thousand other items and is hard to find physically, the Senitron system will be able to show you where it is on the sales floor.

Template Commands From HQ

Retailers with several locations often have certain requirements that hundreds of stores must follow for where to place new items and how to display items. In the past, the store’s headquarters would send a request to store management and store personnel and assume or hope that the placements are done in a reasonable period of time and to the set requirements.

These templates can often change to accommodate a sale or change in season. It can be hard to determine which stores adhere to management requests and which stores are slower to respond and comply.

With the RFID solutions for retail from Senitron, management at headquarters knows exactly which store has complied with a store template change and which has not.

Organizing Products

Keeping retail stores organized is a challenge. And if that store has a large number of products, the organization is a never-ending challenge. Retail store employees can spend a significant portion of their time putting items back in proper places. If items aren’t returned to proper places, sales might be missed, and revenue can decrease.

The RFID retail inventory management system from Senitron knows where all items are located, and it can tell that a group of items of the same kind are close to each other. If an item is separated from its group, it can command store personnel to put the item back with its group.

The system will show where the misplaced item is and where it needs to go to make the process even easier. As soon as the item is returned to its proper place, the command is auto resolved.

Omni-Channel Success

Many companies have considered selling products online; these items might be spread throughout different brick-and-mortar stores. But managers quickly realize that selling in-store products online is a major challenge because items assumed to be in stock are perhaps missing or misplaced. Sometimes sales have to be canceled, which upsets customers and has the collateral effect of a damaged reputation and reduced likelihood of repeat sales.

The RFID solutions for retailers from Senitron empowers retailers to sell online and through other channels with the confidence of knowing that products are in stock and are ready to be sold and shipped.

Theft

There are generally two kinds of theft in retail environments: External theft from customers stealing products and walking out the door with them and internal theft from the employees themselves.

  1. To help decrease external theft, our reader monitors the store's entry and exit points and can alert when a product passes through that zone, notifying employees and security that an item has breached the store exit; we believe continuous surveillance is a powerful deterrent. This can be integrated into the CCTV system to video/photograph the person who will be “caught” stealing. To prevent customers from stealing by cutting off tags, we can place the tag on fabric labels of the clothing or use dual Sensormatic/RFID tags.
  1. To help decrease internal theft, readers are constantly monitoring all tagged items in real-time and can pinpoint the location of an item, specifically where it was last seen. This tracking is highly effective at deterring employees from stealing because they know that this monitoring is constantly occurring. The system also allows the asset protection teams to review transaction data with CCTV footage to pinpoint theft within hours instead of days.

American Apparel was initially interested in the RFID solutions for retailers offered by Senitron because they were trying to lower their continuous labor expenses that are involved when doing inventory using hand-held RFID scanners. However, once they installed the Senitron Solution, they unlocked a number of amazing capabilities they couldn’t have before imagined.

 

History

When barcodes were introduced, it seemed that the retail inventory problem was solved. But while there were many advantages, there were some drawbacks. One problem is that inventory takers have to scan each item 1 by 1 until inventory is completed. This is a time-consuming process, and as time equals money, the expense can be great.

Because the expense is significant, many retailers only do inventory twice a year because doing it more often would cost too much money in labor and time.

When labels with RFID were introduced, the inventory process got easier. Inventory personnel doesn’t have to physically touch each item. Instead, they take a handheld RFID reader, walk around and wave the reader like a wand to grab items in their vicinity.

The RFID solution is better and certainly reduces labor costs, allowing retailers to take inventory more often. But it’s still a method that can’t be done very often because time still has to be allotted for inventory. The hands-free RFID solutions for retail offers innumerable benefits such as quick identification of items while restocking, web-to-store transactions, visible movement of the products, and much more.

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