DRIVING THE RFID AGENDA IN RETAIL: A Two-day Interactive Workshop

Context

Today, shoppers expect to be able to buy what they want, where they want, at the time they want, and then return whatever they don’t want, wherever they want, whenever they want, all in a way that can improve sustainability.

To best serve this customer, retailers and brand owners have invested in online commerce fulfilment and returns centres while adding work processes and technologies in their stores to pick, pack and pass on to customers and then ship online orders, and of course accept any return items.

In this new retail context, not knowing with an extraordinarily high level of confidence where your inventory is in your supply chain network at any one point in time, and for those inventory records to be correct, has become business critical.

There are many examples of retailers and brand owners that have now invested in sustainable, integrated, and digital retail supply chain networks, with RFID as one of the critical enabling technologies. The ECR Retail Loss Group has established a working group that focuses on this topic. It provides RFID leaders from retail and leading brands with the knowledge they need to leverage the power of collaboration to drive innovation, best practices, and new use cases. The ECR Retail Loss Group is arranging a unique in-person meeting for this working group in Central London in October 2022.

Who Should Attend?

The invitation to attend is open to any retailer or brand owner and will be especially interesting for those companies who have been participating in the ECR virtual working group meetings, this includes; Adidas, C&A, Asda, Decathlon, Target, Myer Australia, H&M, M&S, PVH, River Island, Tesco, John Lewis, Matalan, Next, Lululemon, Nike and Reiss. In addition, academics with an interest in inventory record accuracy, product ID taggants and the future of retail supply chains are also invited to join the meeting.

Workshop Agenda

Day 1 – Wednesday October 5th, 2022

From 11am: Arrivals & Coffee

12.00: Introductions, Expectations & Working Lunch

13.00: Reviewing RFID in Practice: Store Visits

Participants will be divided into small groups of 3-4, with each group visiting two retail stores in Oxford Street area, to hear and see how store teams are utilising RFID.

16.00: Store Visit Debriefs

Through a facilitated discussion, groups will share their insights and learnings from the store visits.

17.00: Industry Networking: Blind Dates

Each retailer/brand owner participant will be given three ‘dates’ with peers from other retailers to enable them to share their three top work plan priorities for RFID.

18.00: Network Drinks & Snacks

Day 2 – Thursday October 6th, 2022

08.30: Coffee & Day 1 Recap

09.00: Getting the Most out of an RFID Investment: Meeting the Omni-channel Imperative

Participants will be divided into small groups and tasked with creating a business case for using RFID in an online retail environment. Groups will then present their ideas back to the main group.

10.15: What’s Next for RFID? Future Developments & Innovation

Participants will hear from technology experts and then have the opportunity to discuss current advances in RFID technology and how they might help retailers and brand owners generate improved stock visibility throughout the supply chain.

11.30: Coffee Break

12.00: Using RFID to Deliver Business Success: Keynote Speaker – [TBC]

In this presentation, the speaker will share their organisation’s changing global supply chain context, and how their business is evolving to one that is becoming more online Vs bricks and mortar, and more B2C vs B2B. direct to the consumer. The talk will then talk to the ways that RFID is and will play in enabling these changes. The group will then discuss the key learning points.

13.00-14.00: Network Lunch & Departures

14.00: Close

Benefits of Participation

This two-day meeting will provide participants with the opportunity to take full advantage of a peer-to-peer learning experience, to gain new insights, new benchmark data and new thinking on the use and deployment of RFID. There is no cost to attend other than participants’ own travel and accommodation costs. For overseas visitors, the ECR Retail Loss Group would be happy to help support the planning of additional benchmark retailer visits before and/or after the main meeting.  

Next Steps

If your business is interested in sending participants, please register your interest by clicking here and / or drop an email to colin@ecrloss.com