Zebra Technologies recently announced Zebra SmartSense™ for Retail asset visibility solution, an enterprise asset intelligence (EAI) offering that reportedly delivers deeper visibility into retail operations, provides better business insights and enables smarter decisions.
This solution combines UHF RFID, video, and a micro-location capability to identify and track the journey and location of merchandise, associates, and shoppers in a retail store in real time. An edge analytics engine analyzes data from these sources to provide intelligent and actionable insights to achieve optimal stocking levels, detect and identify misplaced merchandise or assets, pinpoint theft and enhance store promotions and product placement activities.
Key Facts
- SmartSense for Retail provides visibility of the entire store with up-to-the-minute location information on tagged inventory, employees, and customers who have opted into the network or loyalty application.
- An intuitive dashboard and centralized management console provides operational, actionable data to support greater inventory accuracy (near 100 percent), omnichannel operations and asset protection across the entire enterprise.
- Knowledge of merchandise location helps associates quickly respond to customer requests, whether in-store or via omnichannel store pick-up. With SmartSense for Retail, retailers can also quickly locate lost merchandise, proactively prevent theft and ensure best-selling items are always on display during peak shopping periods, which can increase store sales by up to 20 percent.
- Location intelligence also helps retailers track the journey of a piece of merchandise, including items that are at risk of being stolen.
- Knowing the location of employees helps retailers match the right associate and expertise with the shopper, increasing the likelihood of a sale and satisfied customers.
- SmartSense for Retail also helps track critical employee assets like handheld RFID readers and mobile computers, helping retailers quickly find lost merchandise and equipment.
“In today’s omnichannel world, product availability is critical,” said Bob Sanders, senior vice president and general manager of data capture solutions, Zebra. “Many retailers have in-store inventory visibility challenges, with perpetual inventory accuracy running at about 60 percent. This is simply not adequate to deliver a consistently satisfying customer experience. Successful retailers need to use every store and supply chain resource to immediately deliver what customers want and need. With Smart Sense for Retail, brick and mortar retailers can gain visibility that’s truly visionary – helping them immediately locate merchandise and respond to customer requests, while reducing missed sales opportunities.”