Making RFID a Success: Lessons on Implementation March 18, 2022 By Adrian Beck Introduction The history of RFID utilisation in retailing is perhaps best described as chequered! From its initial development in the late 1990s, retailing was quickly identified as an area where it could potentially make a revolutionary change to business practices and operational…
The Evolution of RFID in Retailing: A Maturity Model February 16, 2022 By Adrian Beck Introduction As I discussed in an earlier blog on the evolution in the use of RFID in retailing – it is a technology that has been on a ‘long burn’ and only now after 20 plus years since it was…
The Role of RFID in Enabling Omni-channel Retailing January 3, 2022 By Adrian Beck Introduction A recently published ECR Report, which focussed upon on the way in which retailers who have invested in RFID technologies are innovating in its use, highlighted the critical role it can play in enabling businesses to deliver ‘Omni-channel’ retailing. Even…
Making the Case for Utilising RFID in Retailing December 2, 2021 By Adrian Beck Some technologies can often be on a very slow burn before they reach a tipping point of acceptability, value, and utilisation. In many respects, the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies in retailing is an archetype of this phenomenon –…
Establishing a Maturity Model for Total Retail Loss October 19, 2021 By Adrian Beck Introduction It is now 5 years since the first Total Retail Loss (TRL) report was published, although that was essentially a bookend to a longer journey of reflection and review on how retail businesses were experiencing and responding to the issue…
Getting to Grips with the Hot Concept in Retailing: Focusing on the vital few rather than the trivial many September 15, 2021 By Adrian Beck Introduction The Pareto principle is a well-known and often quoted concept – the 80/20 rule – 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. Equally, it is widely acknowledged and…
To Count or Not to Count: Understanding the Impact of Inventory Counting on Retail Sales and Loss June 14, 2021 By Adrian Beck I recently took part in a Datascan Roundtable with Adrian Thomas, President and CEO of Datascan, and David Erasmus, their Director for EMEA, to discuss developing issues around the issue of inventory…
Generating Inventory Data Through Video Analytics: Development or Distraction? May 11, 2021 By Adrian Beck As part of the ECR Retail Loss Group’s regular sessions exploring the use of video technologies in retailing, the subject of utilising them to facilitate the collection of inventory data was recently the focus of attention. Presentations were made by…
Why out-of-stocks should be part of a Total Retail Loss perspective March 22, 2021 By Adrian Beck The most recent iteration of the Total Retail Loss typology, published in 2018, maps out 42 categories of loss spread across four ‘centres’: the Retail Store, the Retail Supply Chain, E-commerce and Corporate. While there are undoubtedly more…
Emerging from the Loss Prevention Data Desert: The Value of Data Analytics March 4, 2021 By Adrian Beck As William Deming rather pithily put it: ‘without data, you’re just another person with an opinion’. Certainly, within the realm of retail loss prevention, there has been a history of having relatively little data to understand the…
