RFID Technology Helps Build High-tech Clothing Showroom

Lacoste's Brazilian subsidiary is a popular clothing brand dominated by green crocodile logo and is currently testing the use of RFID technology in the customer showroom at Sao Paulo headquarters. The solution contains RFID UHF labels and readers, which brings many conveniences to visitors and executives in the exhibition hall.

This year, the company launched a new store concept called Le club, a technology-enhanced showroom. Thierry Guibert, CEO of Lacoste, said: "The new Lacoste showroom aims to create a unique personal experience for consumers. Before you enter Le Club, you can clearly feel the blending atmosphere of the brand and Rene Lacoste's idea in Le Club, because lighter materials and iconic brand colors remind you of the layout of tennis courts - green concrete panels refer to Rene Lacoste's training wall.

Cristiano Assis, project manager of Lacoste Brazil, said the aim of the exhibition hall was to show business departments that RFID technology could help simplify product logistics operations and reduce significant costs. He added, "We have received tagged apparel and plan to make RFID a global project for the company. Similar initiatives are currently being tested in Mexico.

Assis said that in the international logistics business, 40,000 to 50,000 garments are stored in each container, so counting is an expensive and time-consuming process. "For example, even if for some reason the company chooses not to use RFID technology in store sales, the potential gains in receiving and delivering products to distributors are ultimately worth it," he said.

Lacoste has opened five stores, more than 80 franchise stores and more than 1000 brand outlets in the Brazilian market. "Now, our showroom is selling products that we will open to the public in a year's time," Assis explained. That is to say, we have received orders from franchisees and multi-brand retailers who will come here to place orders.

The company has leather, footwear, bags, textiles and other products. In terms of inventory and tracking products, the RFID system includes two UHF handheld readers; in terms of product checkout, UHF RFID desktop reader will be used.

In the elevator lobby, Lacoste installed an fixed reader, which can query the label information of all products in the exhibition hall. The reader can notify Lacoste's manager of the illegal deletion of the product inventory, thereby preventing theft and misplacement.

Assis said: "We hope to use RFID technology to record parts in and out of the warehouse information. Like other projects, we need to validate the usability of the entire scenario by planning projects to increase business opportunities, costs, critical paths and benefits. Sergio Gambim, chief executive of iTag, said it was a great honor for the company because it could help Lacoste, the world's first maker of polo shirts, deploy RFID systems.