Fabletics Tech Transformation - RFID Rollout | Fast Five Shorts

Fabletics is going all in on rfid.

According to our friends over at Retail Touchpoints, Fabletics has launched the G Store software as a service retail solution from Gray orange in over 100 stores.

The G Store app's integrated analytics, powered by overhead and handheld RFID readers, can identify items abandoned in dressing rooms, placed in the wrong section, or simply running low on the sales floor.

In the stores where the solution has been deployed, Fabletics has achieved 95 to 97% fill rates, completely eliminated manual cycle counts and boosted per location sales by up to 20%.

Fabletics is adding the solution to 20 locations per month.

And in the next phase, Gray Orange will work with the retailer to enable more efficient store to store transfers through G Store, helping ensure each item is positioned in the location where it's most likely to sell.

All right.

We here at Omnitalk have long espoused RFID on this show.

Are there any counterpoints, Mr. Ben Miller, as to why retailers, especially apparel retailers, should not be invested in rfid?

Great question.

And it's, I'm really pleased to say, for everyone who's going to be in Chicago in a couple of weeks, Mira Bhatia, who's president and chief operating officer of Atabletics, is going to be there and is going to be on a conversation which is all about what can the C suite learn from Frontline from the retail stores.

And this gets to the heart of that because yes, on paper, what you can do with rfid, particularly in apparel, is fantastic.

What are the challenges?

I mean, the first challenge, number one was unit cost of the tags and that's been coming down in the business case.

So I think that's less of a hurdle than it has been.

But the second one is there's absolutely no point in doing this if you don't have the ability to process the information to take all of these data points and turn it into something that is actionable.

And then thirdly, you've got to make sure that your in store staff have the tools, the colleagues have the ability to be able to see the data and to be able to take action from it.

So there's no point having RFID saying that this item is over here if you, if your team in store don't have the handheld devices or the apps that they need to be able to see that spot the problem and takes action on it.

So for me, making RFID happen, and this has been one of the challenges about scaling it is how do you also scale the technology and the capabilities to help your store associates run their Stores better where we've seen retailers who've been able to crack that.

And we talked about Walmart earlier.

There is no, it's not a coincidence that they're rolling out their My Walmart app to their team at the same time they're rolling out their RFID technology, where you've got the two working together, yet you can unlock the benefits.

And I think that's the conversation we want to have with Mira, is how do you take this investment and make sure that the install team can make it work?

That's the Watch out.

Well, I was just out at the Fabletics flagship store two days ago, so I got to see this live.

And I think you're absolutely right, Ben.

It is critical that you have all of the tools to make this successful.

And I think that's what the G Store platform is enabling here.

They have the handheld devices, they have the overhead arrays that are doing all the inventory counts.

And the stat that I will leave people with.

And there's more to come.

We've got a video on the way.

But the stat that I'll leave you with is 18 minutes.

So when you're talking about ROI, 18 minutes is all it took the store associate, Neela, the store manager, to do an entire store's worth of inventory in 18 minutes.

Back of house, front of house.

She knew exactly how many units were in the, in the store at that time, what units, Maybe, you know, one tool versus another tool didn't connect.

So with that platform, she's able to get that done.

And the cost savings there.

It would have taken multiple associates, it would have taken contractors in.

They'd have to pay for, in addition to that to make that inventory happen.

And it would have only been done twice a year.

So I think it's really important also to be thinking about, yes, there's the upfront investment for a platform like G Store for RFID labels, but, but where are you going to get cost savings from the rest of the organization to help make up for that?

And then the last point I'd say is you have to make sure that you're continuously evaluating this technology.

I think there's still a lot of people and I'm excited that you'll be talking about this at Shop Talk fall.

Ben.

There's still a lot of people who looked at RFID tags several years ago and are saying it's too expensive, can't see the quick roi.

And that has to change.

You have to start looking at it and start to looking at, look at the advantages beyond just inventory visibility that the, this kind of platform is affording you.

But Chris, I'll give you the last word here.

What do you think?

Is there any reason why retailers, especially apparel retailers, should not be moving forward with rfid?

Nope, not a one.

Not a one.

Honestly, apparel retailers especially.

Because the way I think about this is this is the equivalent to what you're trying to do with robotics in grocery stores.

Because computer vision in apparel is still tricky.

And so that's why the robots are now learning how to read RFID in these environments too, to make it even simpler for them.

But it's the whole idea of getting the smart store and the data.

And so the analogy I would use is, and I wrote about it, actually I dropped the article this morning.

Is the is Apple and gps.

When it rolled out gps.

As soon as Apple released geopositioning data into its ecosystem, the world changed and we've never looked back.

And the same thing is about to happen with rfid, particularly in apparel.

And the reason that's important is what you guys have highlighted, what I called an article, the service margin paradox.

You know, if you want to have great service, you better have great margins on your products.

And the lower your services are, the, you know, the less you know margin you probably are commanding for it.

But at the end of the day, the cost of labor is going up.

So it's eating into the margin of whatever customer service level you have.

So you've got to find ways as retailers to work that out.

And this type of technology affords you the ability to do that because it gives you the better inventory visibility, like you said, Ann.

But it also just tells you so many other data points like what we've also started to understand through robotics, through grocery stores as well.

So all those analogous use cases are all there.

That's why I think, you know, rfid, it's, it's, it's coming and I think it's time to jump on board.

Everybody.