Series 3 Episode 5
RFID Innovations in Retail - new use cases, mobile readers and digital product passports
RFID innovations in retail are accelerating as more retailers discover new use cases beyond basic inventory counting.
Colin Peacock and Dr Susanne Guth-Orlowski of the RAIN Alliance reflect on the 2025 ECR RFID Innovation Summit in Düsseldorf, hosted by C&A, where around 70 retailers shared their experiences.
They discuss the diversity of deployments, from self-checkout integration to overhead readers, plus Qualcomm's vision for mobile RFID and the EU's digital product passport regulation. Four startups pitched new ideas, and the collaborative, retailers-only format sparked new thinking across the room. The 2026 summit moves to Madrid.
Podcast summary
RFID innovations in retail are moving well beyond basic stock counting, as retailers find new ways to use the technology across loss prevention, self-checkout, security and the supply chain. In this episode of the Sell More and Lose Less podcast, Colin Peacock is joined by Dr Susanne Guth-Orlowski, RFID digital product passports specialist at the RAIN Alliance, to reflect on the 2025 ECR RFID Innovation Summit held in Düsseldorf and hosted by C&A. Around 70 retailers attended, ranging from those with two decades of RFID experience, like Decathlon, to newcomers like Dunelm just beginning their journey. The conversation covers the wide variety of use cases shared at the event, Qualcomm’s presentation on bringing RFID reading to consumer smartphones, the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products regulation and its implications for digital product passports, and an innovation showcase featuring startups working on overhead readers, sustainable tags and AI-powered data analysis. As ECR’s own research into RFID innovation has shown, retailers that invest early tend to discover additional use cases incrementally, and the summit provided a clear illustration of that pattern in action.
RFID innovations in retail: inside the 2025 ECR summit
Introduction
COLIN:
Hello and welcome to the ECR Retail Loss Sell More and Lose Less podcast series. My name is Colin Peacock. I’ve worked in the retail and FMCG business for more than 40 years, working on the dark side of retail, on retail loss at every point in the supply chain.
Susanne Guth-Orlowski of the RAIN Alliance really joined us in our RFID meeting which was hosted by C&A in Düsseldorf in October. We’ll bring you some highlights from that meeting. But first, Susanne, who are you?
SUSANNE:
Thank you, Colin. Thanks for inviting me. I am Susanne Guth-Orlowski. I’m the DPP specialist of the RAIN Alliance. That’s the role in which I’m here today.
Why does the RAIN Alliance need a digital product passport specialist? We have the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products regulation coming up that mandates a digital product passport, and RAIN is one of the accepted data carriers. It has a lot of advantages: it can be read at long distances, it supports mass reading without line of sight and without light.
This is how I ended up at your wonderful event in Düsseldorf in October, being able to hear from the end users what they’re working with, what they’re struggling with, and how the RAIN technology can help them move forward.
The summit format and retailer participation
COLIN:
Thank you. I really enjoyed your company and participation in Düsseldorf. You were very energetic, very passionate, and always had a contribution to make.
For those who weren’t there, it was a meeting with about 70 of us, hosted by C&A, who have a global RFID programme. The people who came along ranged from heads of RFID for companies like Decathlon, who have been doing it for 20 years, to those like Dunelm just about to get on the train, and everyone in between.
We had a chance to visit stores and see what was in them. We heard from Qualcomm about how the next evolution of RFID will be readers in everyone’s mobile phones. That’s quite some way away, but certainly handheld devices like Zebras that we have in stores are already there.
Then we had four startups pitching different ideas, from overhead readers to sustainable tags. We had burgers. I don’t think we ordered enough burgers, but they were very enjoyable at a local place. That was a really good chance for us to connect.
The next day we had round table discussions. We had the new head of RFID for Primark talk about the do’s and don’ts of getting launched. We had a deep dive into the data, discussions around DPP, the business case, and generally explored. So it was two days spread over a Wednesday and Thursday. Very good, and we got lots of positive feedback. What were your takeaways? It was the first time you’ve been with us.
A safe space for honest exchange
SUSANNE:
I thought it was a really energetic meeting. I was absolutely surprised how open everyone was, because obviously competitors were in the room. But because of how you set it up, Colin, it was a real safe environment for only peers. There was no noise from people trying to sell solutions or from a different part of the supply chain. Everyone felt very safe and comfortable to talk about their RAIN deployments.
It was nice to see how everyone was actually struggling with the same things and how they could exchange on those topics and how they solved problems. It was also interesting to see that everyone was implementing the RAIN technology in a slightly different way. One using it for this use case, another for a different one. They all had slightly different approaches. I thought that was very interesting.
Frequency and reader placement
COLIN:
For example, do you count every single day using an overhead reader, or every 15 minutes, or every three weeks? That frequency question was fascinating.
SUSANNE:
Where do you put the readers? What power does the reader have? When do they read? In which room do they read? When is the transit from stock to the store? Super interesting, especially when we went through C&A and they explained where the readers were. Others were super interested in where they would read and what would end up in the system.
Growing retailer momentum
COLIN:
Two points. First, the self-checkouts, the front end. There were two or three retailers doing RFID at self-checkout, where you just put items in a bucket with readers.
Going back to your original point, I think we were up about 25% in terms of the number of retailers registered. We had 30 or 40 different retailers attending, which is phenomenal. You really get a sense, certainly in fashion, apparel, sports, maybe moving into home, there was a real energy around RFID. I’m sure it’s linked to productivity, to e-commerce and the need for more accurate inventory.
SUSANNE:
It was really nice that people could learn from others who are either more advanced or use the technology in a different area. It was super inspiring to see some participants so far ahead, doing things with the technology that others wouldn’t have imagined possible. But they started five to ten years ago. Everyone could see the potential.
New use cases came up all the time. For example, what I found fascinating is that with RAIN RFID you can control the security mechanism at the doors to see if an item has been paid for. If it has, you go through. If it hasn’t, the alarm goes off. Others thought, actually, we can build that into our security system as well. That was really inspiring.
Mobile RFID and the Qualcomm debate
COLIN:
We might actually know how much we’re losing to, as one retailer used to call them, non-paying customers.
The fascinating area was the Qualcomm debate. When they presented the idea that eventually consumers will be able to use their smartphone to read RFID, about a third of the room went into “that’s brilliant, can you imagine how amazing this will be for the consumer?” Another third said the read range is going to be quite small, it’s not really that practical for retail. And the last third said, “we’ve heard about this for a while, I’ll believe it when I see it.” What was your take?
SUSANNE:
I was involved in the early discussions bringing RAIN RFID to mobile. So for me, what Qualcomm presented was already known. I do see the potential, and I believe many people did as well. It started them thinking about what they could do. You could see through the two days new ideas evolving with what this could bring to market.
For example, you bring your tyres to the garage for the winter break, and when you get them back, are these actually your tyres? New use cases came up all the time, like the sports bag idea.
COLIN:
Check everything you’ve got in the sports bag. I know where that’s going to go.
Startups and the data challenge
SUSANNE:
The new use cases that everyone came up with and the extensive learning were the main highlights. The way you set up the programme, having more advanced retailers speak about their experience and then having others who had just started learn from them, was really inspiring. The startups that came in were energising and inspiring too.
COLIN:
I was particularly taken by one of the startups that talked about, and we saw this with C&A as well, just the amount of data now available to retailers from RFID. River Island talked about having about 11 different read points in the store, reading millions of items every day. That’s just one store. Then you’ve got 500 stores. Then distribution centres. Then factories. The amount of data generated is beyond the reach of any human to make sense of.
We had one startup say they had some ideas about using AI to make sense of this. I thought that was quite an inspiring session. I know several retailers took some next steps around that.
Looking ahead to Madrid 2026
COLIN:
We’re doing it all again this year in Madrid, tying in with your conference on the 29th and 30th of September and the 1st of October. We’re looking forward to that. We’ll probably have another 25% more retailers because we’re working together. It should be a big meeting. We’ll have a retailer hosting it, some keynote talks, more innovations, startups, and hopefully that same collaborative approach. We’ll look forward to seeing you there, Susanne. Thanks for taking time this morning to share your highlights. And thank you for joining, because you really were a very positive contributor. It was a pleasure having you as part of the group.
SUSANNE:
Thank you so much, Colin. I’m looking forward to seeing you in Madrid again, to meet this inspiring and energetic industry.
Outro
COLIN:
Brilliant. See you soon. Thank you very much.
Well, that’s all we have time for this week. Thank you for joining us and thanks to all the ECR Retail Loss community for the sharing of their knowledge, their research, and latest learnings that ensure that we become truly a global platform for learning.
My name is Colin Peacock. This is the Sell More and Lose Less podcast. If you liked it, please subscribe so you automatically get all future episodes. And if you think your colleagues and friends might also like it, please ask them to follow ECR Retail Loss on LinkedIn and tune in to our next podcasts. If you didn’t like it, then let us know and we’ll try and fix it. Either way, see you next time. Thank you again.
