VF Corp. opens store featuring RFID innovation at SAP headquarters
VF Corp., parent company of Vans, The North Face and Timberland, is operating a store at SAP headquarters in Germany that highlights RFID’s role in brick-and-mortar.
VF Corp. is showcasing the Nedap Inventory Engine RFID solution and retail technologies from other providers including SAP at a fashion store called S.Fashion at SAP’s corporate headquarters in Walldorf, Germany.
S.Fashion functions as both a working retail store and an innovation environment, leveraging the Nedap Inventory Engine as the RFID “inventory system of truth,” providing item-level product data that supports several connected retail experiences, including:
● Find your product: Overhead RFID reading technology helps shoppers locate products in a self-service store environment.
● Checkout: Demonstrations of Nedap’s iD POS Pro and self-checkout solutions are intended to show how inventory visibility connects with the purchase process.
● Exit detection: Nedap’s iD Gate PRO RFID reader solution identifies when an item passes through the exit with an unsold status in the Nedap iD cloud database, triggering an alarm.
This innovation hub builds on an existing implementation of Nedap Inventory Engine across VF Corp.’s brand portfolio and more than 1,500 stores, with the goal of creating a stronger foundation for end-to-end inventory visibility.
The deployment began in the second quarter with The North Face and will expand to additional VF brands over time. The company aims to enhance stock accuracy, improve product availability and strengthen omnichannel performance across all the regions where it operates.
In addition to enhancing store inventory visibility, VF also intends to deploy Nedap inventory management technology to improve its view of products moving through its distribution channels, supporting efforts to address grey-market activities and other brand protection issues.
[READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: The North Face deploys immersive tech in London flagship]
“Retailers invest significantly in the systems that manage their stores, but those systems need an accurate picture of what’s happening on the sales floor to deliver their full value,” said Hilbert Dijkstra, managing director retail, Nedap. “By connecting RFID with other store technologies, retailers can reduce the manual effort involved in managing inventory, improve operational accuracy and give their teams more time to focus on customers.”
