Loss Prevention Research Council Weekly Series - Episode 64 - Consumer Trends and Global RFID Retail Adoption
With Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D'Onofrio, and Tom Meehan
Americans Increasingly Ready For a Return to Normal
https://www.statista.com/chart/24342/readiness-to-return-to-normal-in-the-us/
This is from Statista.
Percent of survey respondents who said they would be comfortable doing the following right now:
Going to a restaurant it was 37% in January 2021, 50% in March 2021 and 68% in June 2021.
Going to a shopping mall it was 32% in January, 47% in March, and 63% in June 2021.
Going on vacation 29% in January, 45% in March, and 63% in June 2021.
Post-Shutdown Spending Priorities: How Covid Changed How We Shop
https://risnews.com/post-shutdown-spending-priorities-how-covid-changed-how-we-shop
From RIS News, how are we changing our shopping habits as we reopen.
53% of consumers are now buying things online more than normal, with almost 8 in 10 shoppers (78%) expected to increase online purchasing over the next 12 months
Consumers are still being conservative in their spending. 78% of shoppers still say they will need to be “very careful” with their money over the next year and 49% have already cut down on “frivolous” spending, and are much less likely to be splashing the cash.
Travel is the area that consumers plan to spend the most on when they are released from lockdown with 40% expecting to spend more this year than they did pre-Covid.
More than half of shoppers (55%) are now buying things online that they only previously bought in-store and 38% of buyers are less likely to shop in-store than they were before Covid.
Despite the success of online retail since the start of the pandemic, 61% of consumers have experienced some problems buying from brands online — with a quarter of shoppers having been let down by an online order since the crisis started.
One of the main shifts in spending habits since Covid has been the switch to more local shopping and a move away from malls.
Incredibly, 75% of shoppers plan to spend more at local shopping streets than before the pandemic and 71% say they will increase spending with independent retailers, illustrating that the trend towards localism is here to stay, which is likely to continue to be reinforced by our own remote working habits, which are set to remain for the foreseeable future.
What’s Driving the 93% Retail RFID Adoption Rate in North America?
https://www.tonydonofrio.com/blog/retail/what%E2%80%99s-driving-the-93-retail-rfid-adoption-rate-in-north-america.html
RFID has been around for years in the retail space — in fact, I’ve been writing about RFID in retail since as early as 2012 — with more recent articles focusing on the adoption trends at Nike and Walmart..
Accurate inventory has been a challenge for retailers for some time. According to a 2020 IHL Group report, inventory distortion worldwide is a $1.8 trillion problem or the equivalent of 10.3% of same store sales in retail and hospitality. “Or to put it another way, more than the annual GDP of Canada.”
RFID is one of three very important technologies that play a key role in addressing the problem of inventory distortion. While apparel has led the charge in the adoption of RFID technology for inventory control, other retail sectors are quickly expanding their activities.
A clear indicator of RFID is the growth of labels applied to retail consumer items. From 2016 to 2020 the compounded annual growth rate is running at 24%. In 2020, we are getting close to nearly 20 billion labels.
North America leads the trend of RFID adoption with 93% of retailers reporting that they use RFID in various stages of deployment. Splitting the deployment stages in North America, 8% are piloting, 37% are currently implementing RFID and 47% have it fully deployed.
In Europe the adoption rate 77% with 8% piloting, 37% implementing, and 32% with full adoption.
In Asia / Pacific the adoption rate is also 77% with 6% piloting, 25% implementing, and like North America 47% having full adoption completed.
More adaptive retailers are discovering new applications of RFID, such as streamlining omnichannel offerings like BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) and improving supply chain visibility and self-checkout. In the past two years alone, the omnichannel options retailers offer have increased significantly, with 66% of RFID adopters and piloters offering five or more services, like BOPIS, ship from store, ship to store, reserve in-store, mobile app purchasing, and home delivery.
As the adoption and application of RFID grows, so does its return on investment. According to data from Accenture, retailers that have fully adopted RFID reported more than 10% ROI, compared to 9.2% in 2018. Furthermore, when retailers “layer” their use cases, rather than using RFID for a single application, they see even greater ROI. Retailers that have enabled five or more omnichannel shopping experiences are seeing 20% higher ROI than retailers that have paired RFID with only four or fewer applications.
As the article points out, COVID has accelerated focus on inventory visibility and inventory management for both online and physical stores is the major driver of inventory management. 46% of retailers said they focused on RFID in response to COVID-19.
The other key area delivering benefits for RFID is in streamlining store operations. Decathlon, a sports-equipment retailer with over 1,600 stores in more than 50 countries, tags more than 85% of their items, tripling labor productivity and cutting stockouts to raise revenue by 2.5%. The retailer is also testing RFID-based self-checkout as a scan-and-go solution in Europe, where shoppers can scan and pay for their items with their smartphones.
Finally as discussed in the article RFID can help transform the customer experience. Some apparel retailers have started using RFID to create “smart” fitting rooms, where shoppers can get information about other sizes and colors in stock and receive personalized recommendations for other products that will complete a look. Chanel’s collaboration with Farfetch uses RFID-enabled fitting rooms to show shoppers new styles and product details without ever leaving the room.
In the future, I will discuss emerging loss prevention applications including RFID as EAS.
I conclude the article by stating the challenges that retailers can have in deploying RFID when there is no clear executive support. The pandemic which across the board was an accelerator of digital transformation of all industries including retailers was a reminder that the time to start engaging is now.
LPRC again is one of those places where you can engage with researchers and other retailers on the future of RFID.
Vaccinated! LPRC IMPACT 2021 is In-Person from October 4th to the 6th! In this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss these topics and more, including the LPRC Product Protection Summit is Coming on July 16th, Hackers scrub the dark web to get personal information, Information on the internet always needs a second look, and Shopping through COVID has changed. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more!
