Using radio frequency identification (RFID) in your retail business presents various opportunities and benefits. From reducing your holding costs, optimizing inventory management, and improving stock control, RFID is undoubtedly an excellent investment for retailers.
The right technology, like Lowry Solutions RFID scanner, can help transform your business. However, like other business tech solutions, RFID also has some disadvantages. That said, here are the pros and cons you should know to help you decide whether or not to use RFID.
Pros Of RFID For Retailers
icon-angle-right Less Labor Costs
Typically, labor costs take up most of the retail store’s overall budget. With RFID technology, you can enjoy lesser labor costs as it speeds up shipment verification, calculation, and inventory check-in.
All of these are possible without the need for numerous employees, which can benefit a new grocery store or small business. All you need is an RFID tag to place on your products, an RFID reader, and a computer to get all the information you may need.
So, if you want to minimize labor costs without compromising your retail operations, RFID is a good investment.
icon-angle-right Improve Stock Control And Minimize Out-Of-Stock Situations
An asset tracking tool can be utilized for various factors. One of these is to gain better visibility of the supply chain, which is beneficial for retailers.
The RFID system informs managers whether their items are stored in a container or are being delivered elsewhere. It also provides knowledge of where stocks are located and when they’re available.
The most significant feature of using RFID in your retail store is being able to scan countless assets simultaneously. Unlike the manual approach, where every item should be inspected one-after-another, RFID makes the process faster.
As a result, this technological innovation allows easy and quick checks that would take only days to complete, ensuring shelves are replenished whenever necessary.
With consistently stocked shelves, your retail store will be able to meet your customers’ expectations and improve their overall shopping experience.
icon-angle-right Boost Inventory Accuracy
Another benefit of using RFID technology for retail is improving inventory accuracy. Implementing RFID ensures all your best-seller items or most-popular products are always stocked.
The best RFID technology provides real-time stock availability, from the stock’s arrival to the selling of the products. It means online or in-store customers aren’t left disappointed and will enjoy a seamless shopping experience.
icon-angle-right Reduce Checkout Wait Times
RFID may also help cut checkout wait times. While the traditional barcodes need a line of sight for scanning and individual scanning, RFID scans the entire shopping cart instantly and simultaneously without removing any item.
It’s a time-saving benefit of RFID where products can be scanned in a few seconds, streamlining the process.
icon-angle-right Enable Quick Product Identification
The other primary benefit of using RFID for retail is its capacity to store identification numbers and a significant amount of data.
Therefore, it allows individual items to be tracked and identified anywhere in the store. So, if you want to put less effort and time into product identification, RFID is a great solution.
icon-angle-right Enhance Your Customers’ Shopping Experience
One of the best things about using RFID is its capability to transform the way customers shop and browse for items in brick-and-mortar stores.
Besides, there’s nothing more convenient than shopping for your items in-store without going through the point-of-sale (POS) process. While it may seem impossible, other retail stores have already adopted this concept using RFID to shorten the POS stage and minimize checkout queues.
Making the experience seamless for all of your customers is possible with RFID technology. Instead of sticking with barcode scanning technology, RFID tags can automatically sync data to determine the product’s availability or the number of stocks.
By providing smooth shopping experiences to your customers, they’ll be able to recognize your brand and differentiate your store from your competitors.
Thus, if you’re looking for ways to boost your customer’s shopping experience, RFID can be one of the solutions you can consider. Even if it’s a new technology for most retailers, RFID technology can offer you satisfactory results once appropriately implemented.
Cons Of RFID For Retailers
icon-angle-right Integration And Cost
RFID doesn’t change the landscape or solve problems for retailers. However, it’s essential to streamline operations, enhance data management, and improve customer experiences.
Unfortunately, implementing RFID requires more time than you expect. It doesn’t happen overnight and may often require extensive investment.
Retailers who plan to use RFID should have a stable internet connection for a seamless experience. As for RFID scanners, the cost may vary, ranging from USD$ 1,250 to USD$ 20,000 per reader, and you might need more than one per store.
Aside from the hardware, retailers must consider other significant changes in their business processes, ranging from training to staff requirements.
icon-angle-right Security Concerns
Even if RFID helps retail companies save money and keeps advancing and updating data security, it can still be prone to cyber threats. Although you may use remote devices like smartphones to copy data and scan tags closely, duplicate copies can still be hacked into, stolen, or lost.
When implementing RFID, don’t take online security for granted. To make the most of it, you should continue to update your RFID system and ensure that you have performed data backup regularly.
If possible, store your backups in other places and limit the access of unauthorized individuals on your RFID system and inventory data for better security.
icon-angle-right Transparency And Privacy
The tracking capability of RFID doesn’t stop when customers leave the store unless the tags are removed. While RFID is beneficial for retailers, particularly in providing precise detail and inventory, your customers might not like the idea of tracking.
Suppose customers pay for the items with a debit or credit card or use a loyalty discount card upon checkout. In that case, retailers may link the purchases to the RFID data and use it to map out consumers’ movements online. Therefore, before implementing RFID technology, consider the possible privacy or transparency concerns to decide wisely.
Conclusion
The introduction of RFID in the retail industry has proven to positively impact every brick-and-mortar store. Although it has some disadvantages, its countless benefits are still worth your hard-earned money.
RFID technology doesn’t only reduce your retail costs and improves stock control but also opens the door for some innovative uses. All of which can level up your customers’ overall shopping experience. Ultimately, the choice is still up to you; just weigh the above pros and cons wisely.