Solution · Retail
Retail Management
Stock that is actually accurate on the shop floor, faster checkout, and fewer items walking out unbilled.
- Under 1 hr
- Full store count
- Weekly
- Counting becomes routine
- At the door
- Unbilled items detected
Retail loses margin to two invisible problems: stock records that do not match the shelf, and shrinkage. RFID fixes the first directly — a store can be counted in an hour instead of a night — and the second at the door. Add an RFID POS that reads a whole basket at once and the queue moves faster too.
The problem today
What it looks like before
If two or three of these describe your operation, this solution is worth a conversation. If none of them do, it probably is not.
What we hear
Stock records and shelf reality disagree, so online orders are accepted for items the store does not have.
A full stock count means closing the store or paying staff overnight, so it happens rarely.
Shrinkage is only measured at the annual count, by which point the cause is long gone.
Checkout is slow because every item is handled and scanned individually.
How it works
Step by step, on site
Not an architecture diagram — the actual sequence of what happens to a physical thing.
- 1
Tag at source or in store
Items carry RFID price tags or smart labels, applied by the supplier where possible or printed and applied at goods-in.
- 2
Receive by carton
A carton is read at goods-in without being opened, and discrepancies against the delivery note are known immediately.
- 3
Count the floor weekly
A staff member walks the store with a handheld. A full count takes under an hour, so it can be a weekly routine rather than an annual event.
- 4
Read the basket at POS
An RFID pad at the counter reads every item in a basket at once and posts them to the bill in one action.
- 5
Watch the exit
A security gate at the door alarms on tagged items that were not billed, and can identify which item on a screen for the staff member.
Software used
What changes
Results and benefits
Figures come from real deployments. They depend on site conditions, which is why we commit to numbers for your site only after a trial.
- Under 1 hr
- Full store count
- Weekly
- Counting becomes routine
- At the door
- Unbilled items detected
- Accurate floor stock makes click-and-collect and ship-from-store actually workable.
- Weekly counting finds shrinkage while the cause is still traceable.
- Faster checkout at peak, without adding counters.
- Replenishment is driven by real shelf data instead of by sales assumptions.
Example deployment
What one site looked like
Client names are withheld until we have written permission to publish them.
Apparel chain, 6 stores
Source-tagged garments and a weekly handheld count in every store. Stock accuracy went from around 70% to above 98%, which made online orders fulfilled from store stock viable for the first time. Exit gates were added in the two stores with the highest shrinkage.
Implementation & support
How the project actually runs
Including the parts that take the longest and the parts you have to own rather than us.
- 1
Category selection
We start with the categories where value and shrinkage justify a tag, not with the whole store.
- 2
Source tagging discussion
Getting suppliers to tag at manufacture is the cheapest path. Where that is not possible we set up an in-store tagging station.
- 3
Handheld rollout
One handheld per store, staff trained on the weekly count and on locating a specific item for a customer.
- 4
POS and gate
RFID POS pads and exit gates installed in the stores where checkout speed or shrinkage justify them.
- 5
Routine embedding
The weekly count is put into the store routine with a named owner. Without that, the technology gets used for a month and then stops.
Retail Management solution brief
Source tagging, weekly store counts, RFID POS and exit security for retail.
This is the document that used to live at /pdf/retail.pdf on the old site. The content is now on this page; the PDF stays available.
Questions
Before you commit
Is RFID worth it for a small shop?
It depends on item value and count frequency. For a jewellery or apparel store, clearly yes. For a low-value grocery, barcode is usually still the right answer.
What about items in metal or liquid packaging?
They are harder and need specific tag types and placement. We test before recommending, and for some categories we will tell you barcode is the better tool.
Does the exit gate cause false alarms?
A correctly commissioned gate with deactivation at the POS does not. False alarms come from gates installed without tuning or from tags not being cleared at billing.
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Read moreTalk to us about retail management
Send your site details and what you need to track. We come back with a specification, a hardware list and a read-rate trial plan — before you commit to anything.
Or call +91 97305 32888 — Monday to Saturday, 9:30 am to 6:30 pm.