RFID Technology In The Clothing Industry
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has emerged as a great tool for various industries, including clothing. The retail and manufacturing sector of the clothing industry is always changing, and with it comes new technology also. That is why RFID is one of the newest ways of managing the clothing industry in several ways. This includes managing inventory, optimizing supply chains, and improving how customers interact with the products.
We will try to uncover many ways in which RFID technology has improved delivery in the clothing industry so that you can see if it is a good thing for your business. Let us dive deeper to understand the overall impact on the clothing industry.
Advantages Of RFID Over Traditional Barcodes
For the longest time, we have been used to seeing people opt for barcodes since they are simple to generate and still use. However, RFID now comes with more advantages that have made more people consider getting them over using barcodes. However, what could be these benefits? Check them out below.
The good thing about RFID is that you can do faster and contactless scanning. You do not even need physical contact with the reader. Still, multiple tags can be scanned faster, meaning you can go through several items on a cart faster.
Traditional barcodes often need precise alignment with the scanner, and only one time can be scanned at a time. This sometimes leads to slow scan times, especially when dealing with large inventories.
Compared to traditional barcodes, RFID tags for clothing come with a higher data storage capacity. This is because they can store product information, unique identifiers, expiration dates, manufacturing details, and more.
Barcodes generally have a limited data storage capacity and may need an additional database to have more information stored about a product.
RFID technology can easily help you with real-time tracking and monitoring of your inventory. This means you can have real-time tracking of the stock levels and still the location of an item depending on how large the operation is. As such, this prevents stockouts or excess inventory.
Barcodes would often be backed by manual store checks to ensure you have the right stock levels. Also, you may have delayed updates to the database showing if the stock levels are low or not.
Anyone who has worked with barcodes knows they can start fading with time. However, RFID tags are different. They are durable and robust, thus giving you the best performance even in harsh environments, including heat, moisture, and dirt.
You should get people also liking RFID tags for clothing as they offer more security. This is because there is the option of encrypting data; thus, you get more security than traditional barcodes.
There is not much you would get with barcodes in terms of security. They are publicly visible, and replicating is easy. As such, they can also pose security threats in some stores.
Importance Of RFID Technology In The Clothing Industry
By now, you already have an idea of how RFID technology can be good for the clothing industry. However, we will still like to highlight the importance of RFID technology in detail for you to see why more brands are adopting it.
For the most part, having accurate information about your inventory helps people work on their business better. This means you would know when it is time to contact the manufacturer for more stock. Even the manufacturers can know when it is time to ramp up their production and do better.
RFID technology provides you with a better understanding of the supply chain and knowing where to improve to streamline it. You can monitor product movement in the supply chain, identify bottlenecks, and optimize logistics to improve efficiency. As such, you can have better insights into your business better.
If the supply chain improves, you have better delivery times and make data-driven decisions.
Many companies right now have adopted the use of RFID technology at the checkout process so that they can reduce the waiting times their customers experience. Customers largely enjoy not having to wait in lines for long before being attended to.
Another scenario has been in the fitting rooms, where there are interactive displays for you to scan the clothing and see how best you can wear them. With such an experience, the customers will largely find it easier to choose clothing since they know how it may fit.
Just as jewelry and watches can have a certificate of authenticity, you can use RFID tags for clothing. The RFID tags will have all the right information about the clothing and should be able to prevent counterfeits since all you need is to scan the clothing to see if it is authentic or not
In business right now, you need to do better with your data collection and analyze it further before deciding your next big steps. We can see that RFID tags on clothes will help you know which sizes are selling the most or which type of clothing is popular. This means you can stock more of such clothing to make more money and satisfy your customers’ needs.
How RFID Tags Work in Clothing Items
RFID tags for clothing work based on radio frequency identification technology, meaning you get seamless tracking, identification, and data exchange. The complete system will consist of a central database, RFID readers, and RFID tags.
The RFID tags are the small electronic devices that are attached to the clothing. They can be in the form of adhesive labels, tiny chips integrated into the fabric as it is being made, and sewn-in labels. The tags will mostly be made of a microchip and an antenna.
Each tag usually contains a unique identification number so that it is unique to each product it is attached to.
The RFID readers emit radio waves vital for communicating with the RFID tags. They can either be fixed somewhere or handheld. Whenever the RFID tags are within range, they can be scanned, and information about them can be displayed for someone to go through it.
When the reader captures the data from the RFID tag, the information is sent to a central database for checking, updating, and other functions. You can find more details about the product in the database, such as the size, color, amount available, and more. As you can see, this already helps with real-time tracking of the items in a store.
Conclusion
Technology still keeps making running a business a lot easier. This means you can now get a better customer experience while in a store, and the store owner can manage stock levels better because the RFID tags are involved. We recommend using these tags to experience much more than we have mentioned. Some of the benefits are dependent on a specific business.