RFID has come a long way, and there are many new applications for the technology, from connecting consumes to products to overcoming technical challenges. Karin Fabri, head of corporate marketing and communications for SMARTRAC Group, said that the digitalization of products is an important opportunity for RFID.
 
“The most important trend is the evolution to digitalized products, which allows retailers and brand owners to have another opportunity to connect with consumers through the products,” Fabri added. “For example, adidas designed the Telstar ball for the next FIFA World Cup. It has NFC functionality, which enables the consumer to interact with the ball, and get multiple features and information from the ball. adidas is very supportive in terms of new design elements, and this allows the consumer to connect with the brand and their product.”
 
“Being more connected with the brand is better for everybody,” Fabri added. “It creates value for the consumer that has nothing to do with advertising. For brand owners, RFID provides improved supply chain management. For example, they can see which colors are more popular.”
 
During NRF’s The Big Show, Avery Dennison launched its first UHF RFID inlay for use in microwave ovens, new RFID tags for cosmetics and accessories, and showed its Freshmarx system that provides temperature tracking, RFID inventory visibility and automated food labeling.
 
“What we are seeing is a trend toward connected products, which we have been talking about for years,” said Francisco Melo, VP/GM global RFID for Avery Dennison Retail Branding and Information Solutions (RBIS). “We are seeing a migration from what started in apparel into areas that we call adjacencies to apparel, such as beauty and accessories. We are launching a couple of tags within the beauty space, basically to get enough performance in a limited form factor and have the right aesthetics.”
 
“The big opportunity we are working on is food safety and traceability,” Melo observed. “The microwave tag has been requested by many of our customers. If someone decides to stick a piece of meat with a tag on it in the microwave, nothing happens. It overcomes limitations like arcing and excessive heating, and ensures the consumer is safe and the brand owner can offer a product with confidence.”
 
“We believe that fresh food will be the fastest growing area,” added Ryan Yost, GM, Printer Systems Division at Avery Dennison. “We can use technology for food safety and labor savings.”
 
Carl Rysdon, Checkpoint Systems’ VP of sales, sees RFID as enabling a more complete consumer experience.
 
“I think we are seeing already that retail shoppers looking for an experience and not just a place to buy things,” said Rysdon. “If you are trying on apparel, you may want to browse additional items or additional styles while you are still in the fitting room.  Customer engagement is much more involved than it is today.”
 
“The Connected Store and the Internet of Things (IoT) are the most interesting trends, and are core to what we are offering,” said Rysdon. “It’s making its way into more and more items and continues to expand in apparel.”
 
Jill West, director, marketing communication at Impinj, noted that Impinj’s endpoint ICs create unique identifiers for items from apparel to jewelry to cosmetics.
 
“Cosmetics and jewelry companies are starting to look at this technology,” added West. “Retailers need to know exactly what they have and what they can sell. Ten years from now, our hope is that we will continue to evolve the customer experience, creating the Connected Store, and that our partners will drive these applications.”
 
“We have a series of partners that imbed our ICs, little chips the size of a grain of sand, into a label,” West continued. “Once you put these on items, the opportunity you have to get information about your stores is pretty much endless on a district or even a store-by-store level. You can understand shrink, where your items are disappearing from, can make sure inventory accurate reflects items, can understand fitting room analytics, and which items end up being converted into sales. You can understand shipment verification, which items are inbound and which have been received. You can see through replenishment levels how the store is performing, and that your staff s alerted when items are out of stock.”
 
Inventory remains a key area for RFID.
 
“Today, a lot of retailers are starting to put these tags on these items, so it is creating opportunity for them to get information,” West said. “Most retailers today are really focused on the inventory, and they are doing this with handheld readers. We have opportunity with overhead readers that can always monitor the items, and you can deliver cool experiences like these fitting rooms.”
 
“Retailers are seeing the benefits of using RFID in their supply chain and how it affects their inventory counts,” Rysdon noted. “Retailers who have adopted RFID have seen extremely strong results. In terms of ROI, the proof is there, and retailers are seeing the results.”
 
Bob Sanders, SVP and GM for the Data Capture Solutions Division of Zebra Technologies, said that Zebra provides retailers with products and solutions that give them better visibility in their operation, from in store all the way out to the warehouse.
 
“Retailers need much better visibility, from inventory and restocking shelves to seeing what their customers are interested in and where sales associates are, and they need that information in real time” Sanders observed.  “Our mission is to bring technology to bear to provide advantages to stores and to make it transparent, so they know where the merchandise is and where their shoppers and associates are at any given moment.  RFID plays a significant role here and we have already proven its tracking efficacy in early pilots and are now seeing RFID deployments reaching scale at many large retailers around the globe.  We are continuing to up our game with enhanced solutions to allow retailers to improve customer satisfaction so when they are promised merchandise is in stock it actually is.
 
“Consumers want to buy in any modality that moves them, from whomever they wish to get it from,” Sanders said.  “RFID offers near real-time inventory at a very efficient cost.  Initially, RFID was about identifying an item in a more effective way than bar codes, but it is also proving to have real value in providing location information.”