With the rise of omnichannel shopping, retailers are turning to innovations like smart shelving to create a seamless physical shopping experience for consumers. 

FREMONT, CA: Like many industries, retail is embracing sensor technology for transformation. The expansion of sensor technology is expected to reach more than $35 billion by 2020. Retailers are using sensors to enhance customer experience, reduce costs, drive growth and improve overall performance. There are many ways in which the retail industry uses sensor technology, and the smart shelf is rising to popularity. Smart shelves are devices that use RFID technology to keep track of inventory. Smart shelves use RFID readers, which are connected to the company’s inventory tracking system. Here are some of the benefits offered by smart shelf technology. 

• Keeping Inventories Updated

The obvious benefit of a smart shelf is that retailers are alerted when a product is no longer available. This enables staff to quickly replenish supplies from the stock room so that sales are not missed. Smart shelves improve the customer experience as it prevents consumers from turning up to buy something only to find it is unavailable. 

• Preventing Loss and Theft

When people change their mind about buying something in-store, not everyone would be bothered to put the item back in the shelf. One of the advantages of smart shelving is that it can distinguish between different items and inform staff where these anomalous items are hidden. Preventing items from getting lost or misplaced ensures that all stock is accounted and available for sale. It is also possible to use smart shelves to prevent theft, where an alarm can be triggered when an item is removed from the display shelf.

• Better Inventory Management 

Having products unavailable on the shelf is severe enough, but not having any on the premises is even worse. By adding smart shelving to an inventory management system, retailers are given real-time data about stock levels, making it easy to identify when each item needs to be reordered. The data provided by smart shelving can help retailers make informed decisions to improve the in-store facilities.

With fierce competition in the retail business space, smart shelving brings the additional benefit of saving money. Smart shelf solutions are all set to become commonplace in the coming years.

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