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Partnership Announcement Between TrustTag and Eastern-Fine

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Partnership Announcement Between TrustTag and Eastern-Fine

We are proud and pleased to announce new partnership between TrustTag and Eastern-Fine.  

Eastern-Fine produces high quality Heat Transfer Label, Printed Care Label and Flexo- Sticker. Eastern-Fine products are produced with the latest advanced equipment and technology. The products are manufactured under strict quality management and comply with international SGS, ITS, BV, OEKO-TEX, ISO9001 standards certification. The company headquarter is based in Hong Kong and has 8 foreign branch offices and factories which are based in: China, Cambodia, Vietnam and India.  Eastern-Fine produces over 80 million high quality labels per Month.

TrustTag is a highly recognized and valued solution provider for the EAS industry. The company produces anti-theft systems, detachers, tags and labels for international retailers. Recently a brother company TrustRFID was founded which is focusing on advanced hardware and software solutions based on RFID technology. The companies have in-house design, product & software engineering and manufacturing, which enables to provide high quality and customized products and solutions to their customers. The companies have an extensive dealer network in Asia, EU, USA and expanding into middle and South America. TrustTag has developed a strong reputation for commitment to new product development and excellent customer service.

We are positive that with the partnership between TrustTag and Eastern-Fine. we can create added value for our customers. With the joined cooperation between the 2 companies we can create new synergy, expand our services and provide a One-Stop shopping solution.

This partnership as announced will surely help us enrich and enhance our existing services and introduce new products and services to our international customers.

We are looking forward to service you even better in the future.

Thank you,

Sincerely

Will RFID Improve The Loss Prevention Function of Chinese Retail

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Loss Prevention Committee of China General Chamber of Commerce announced that the Chinese retail lost value has reached 181 billion in 2016, commercial loss rate is 0.71% and it has been going up gradually in these recent 5 years. Internal and external theft is the main reason for the commercial loss. In the analysis report that the internal theft value is higher than the external theft. Therefore to control the internal theft is the main task in commercial loss prevention. Traditional loss prevention solution is not able to save retail loss prevention, that means loss prevention technology shall be upgraded.

Many big retailers domestic and international have led in modernized anti-theft solutions including EAS, CCTV, POS/EM and so on. EAS security system is ususally installed at the conspicuous place of the shopping mall or supermarket, and it can detect the active EAS security tags attached on the commodities items and trigger warning light and sound.

To use EAS anti-theft solution has powerful deterrent force on reducing external theft during retail stores opening. But the current EAS anti-theft security system has the defecs of low detection rate, faulse alarm, weak anti-interference, being shielded by metal, narrow protection range, non-recyclable EAS soft label and so on, which is already not able to meet the needs of existing anti-theft requirements.

CCTV acts mostly as a deterrent for external and internal theft and records the entire process of the event.  While its shortcoming is that closed-circuit monitoring systems are usually installed in hidden locations to remotely monitor specific areas, and the camera’s viewing angles has not covered areas, so it is difficult to play a role at densely populated shopping mall. The CCTV system of the shopping mall needs to have a 24-hour special person for operating, generally speaking, it is difficult for someone in the actual operation to continuously monitor the image for a long time, so it cannot guarantee detection and suppression on the store theft intime.

The see from the above that the traditional retail loss prevention solution is not able to meet the current needs of the market. While in this time, RFID has brought new changes.

RFID has brough new changes to retail loss prevention.

  1. Quick cycle counting to reduce human losses.

After adopting RFID technology on the merchandise, managers can quickly cycle through the inventory and track the goods in real time. The staff only needs to check the inventory in the warehouse and sales area, monitor the real-time inventory, compare the differences and discover the changes of the goods during the operation, and clearly understand the loss of goods. In addition, the quickly counting feature of RFID can reduce the number of staff involved and reduce the theft rate.

Of course, the RFID technology comparing to EAS system, it still has the problem of weak protection of goods in the vicinity of the store entrance. At this stage, an RFID technology based EAS system, plus an RFID chip which is that a tag and two technologies can be for commodity protection and inventory management.

  1. Realize traceability of goods and reduce natural loss.

Low-temperature fresh food is prone to deterioration, using active temperature shelf label can sense the temperature and change real-time accurate price. With the handheld device, base station and software, it can display the freezer temperature in real time. When the temperature is high or low, the system will remind the staff to adjust the temperature in time through the background management system promptly to avoid the loss of food treatment caused by the power failure of the refrigerator.

In addition, the RFID shelf label can also display the existing inventory of the product in real time. Each time the item is sold, the system transmits the updated data to the sensing layer through the sensor. When the staff receives insufficient inventory, the product can be replenished in time.

  1. Automatic cashier to reduce cash loss.

The radio frequency tag based automatic cash register can instantly read the product information and complete the settlement on the helpf of radio frequency tag, without taking out the goods from the shopping basket and scanning the barcode one by one. The automatic cash register method reduces the cash loss caused during checking at the counter.

The functions of RFID achieving in the retail industry are not only preventing loss, but also improving the efficiency of the supply chain, the service quality of the store and so on. At present, the technology premium brought by RFID to the retail industry has begun to appear, and many retail companies have begun to deploy RFID systems.

AI – The Key to Smart Retail

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In the last few years, AI(Artificial Intelligence) has become the most popular technology in  industrial innovation. AI technology enhances the development of data analysis, AI robotics, language processing, computer vision, etc. And they are widely used in various area, like unmanned driving, aerospace, health care, manufacture, education, finance, etc. Today, we will talk about how retail industry benefits from AI technology, which enables retailers to explore what the customers are interested in to customize recommendation and improve customer experience greatly.

AI Online Store – Knows better what you are looking for

Based on data mining and deep learning, AI make the isolated massive data connected and much more valuable for easier customer analysis and better service. As mentioned in my other article “How Powerful Big Data Can Be to Retailers” , as long as retailers can use the big data well, they would also be able to predict sales and optimize their supply chains.

For example, when you search “Red Skirt” on Amazon, different log in accounts may have different search results based on the previous purchases. With the help of AI, amazons would recommend Red Skirts that are in fashion style and using fabric material you like while fitting your shape. This way, customer will be able to find what they need much quicker, while enjoying the individuation of the Red Skirt.

The AI search engine can do more than that. Have you ever seen something interested in buying but don’t know the name of it or even you know the name but still can’t find the exact same one online? No worries, with AI, now you can just take a picture and upload it to the shopping website like Ebay to find out the exact products you want!

Taking advantage of AI technology, online stores are also able to push products that you would most likely buy based on your previous purchase, not just random recommendation as before. In a word, AI knows you better, and helps to find what you need faster!

AI Speaker – The entrance to a smart home

Since Amazon Echo(Alexa) get into homes, they have been playing an important role in the interactive scenario to endow people easy access to the internet and different appliances at home. Now there are more and more AI Speakers in the market, like Google Home, Home Pod from Apple, Invoke from Microsoft etc. It is so magical about them that they will answer whatever questions you ask and execute commands. Just say out what you need and free your hands!

What is a day like with an AI Speaker? Waking up by the AI Speaker that is set to alarm at 6:00am, you ask it to open the curtain to enjoy the sunshine and your favorite music from AI Speaker. After some morning exercise, you ask AI speaker to turn down the AC and feel like to have a coke, but find out there’s no more in the fridge, so you ask AI Speaker to order some more drinks and fruits online to your fridge. AI Speaker can do much more than you can imagine, like call Uber to go out, ask it to turn on lights when get back home, to turn on the TV and choose your favorite TV show, to dim or turn off the light when you are ready to sleep and even play some white noise to help with your sleep and have a sweet dream.

Now many AI Speaker suppliers are lowering the price a lot, even lower than the manufacturing cost. Why? Because they see a bright future for the huge smart appliances markets that they could probably take over simply by one small AI Speaker, which is playing an important role to control the smart home. Imagine that when people become addicted to control everything at home by speak to the AI Speaker, aren’t they going to buy more and more appliances that work with the AI Speaker? Amazon is acting quick to lead their way to take over the big smart retail market. And obviously other retailers are catching up to fight for the huge markets for smart appliances.

Magic Mirror – Help to tell what fits you better

For ladies, trying different colors of lipsticks can be very frustrated as they only have one mouth but there are so many different brands and colors to try on. Even they try to clean the previous trial, there is still leftover that would affect the next trial. However, with the help of magic mirror, they will be able test different colors on their lips without actually trying it on. They only need to take out different lipsticks in front of the magic mirror, which will show different results accordingly.

Apparel stores also have been utilizing magic mirrors to help customers with choosing clothes of different styles and sizes and to try on various of combinations simply through a touch screen. This way, customers don’t need to wait to use the fitting room and put different clothes on and off any more. The magic mirror is also able to tell you what size and colors are available in stock and even receive your order to ask staffs to bring the clothes you need.

So how does magic mirror work to make this happen? First of all, in order to detect the apparels, retailers usually put RFID tags on apparels and RFID reader inside the Magic Mirror. This way, each apparel has their own identification that can be read in front of the magic mirror. After it is shown on the magic mirror, it will also help you to try on the apparel with different sizes and colors and recommend different combination with other apparels. Needless to say, AI technology contributes a lot to above customize process in selecting the satisfying apparels and complete a pleasant purchase.

Self-Checkout – No more lines

Since Amazon came up with the idea of Amazon Go in December, 2016, and started to roll out to the public in January, 2018, Self-Checkout has been highly touted in the retail industry. As the pioneer in Self-Checkout, Amazon Go’s grab-and-go shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and AI deep learning in the entire store.

However, because of the various complicated high-tech applied in Amazon Go stores, it would cost too much to build just a grocery store like that, so it is not practical to roll out stores like that in large scale for most retailers at the stage. Therefore, more and more Self-Checkout solutions are popping up with cheaper solutions and larger scale to take another step closer to consumers.

TrustTag is partnered on the Self-Checkout solution with QueueHop, one of world’s leading technology providers of autonomous retail checkout. For us, we have come up with two Self-Checkout solutions currently.

One is Smart Shopping Cart Solution for supermarkets or grocery stores. The cart is equipped with cameras, weighing system, touch screen and POS system that are enabled by technologies like deep learning, image recognition, neural network, sensor fusion, in-store navigation, etc. to provide tailored recommendations and improve customer experience. With AI technology, the cart is able to keep learning on identifying all products in stores to fulfill the scan-less image recognition tech. So customer only need to take and put whatever they want into the cart and checkout on the touch screen and POS on the smart cart. This is not as convenient as Amazon Go, but it cost 60% less, which is more practical to roll out in large scale for retailers.

TrustTag’s the other Self-Checkout Solution is designed for apparel stores, which is even cheaper, only 5% of the Amazon Go’s cost. Because retailers only need to equip the store with Self-Checkout Kiosks and tags that are based on EAS and RFID technology. For more details about this solution, please click here.

If you are interested in learning more about retails in the new era, please stay tuned for upcoming articles in our series of “New Retail, New Ideas”, which will explore details of specific technologies in new retail.

How Powerful Big Data Can Be to Retailers

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New Retail. New Ideas

Starting from the 18th centuries, the way that how people use energy resources to drastically improve the efficiency has marked each industrial revolution. Coal along with the development of the steam engine, played central roles in the First Industrial Revolution. And it was oil and electricity to creat mass production in the Second Industrial Revolution. When it comes to the Third Industrial Revolution, we can think of nuclear energy, but it was also known as the Digital Revolution, in which internet just debuted in digital world and made the world connected.

We are now under the influence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which builds on the Digital Revolution by emerging technology breakthroughs in numerous fields like robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and the Internet of Things. And for most of these, they rely a lot on one thing-big data, which is also regarded as the new form of “energy resource” in the new industrial revolution.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, which has established the biggest e-commerce platform in China, used to tell a joke in his speech, “Do you know women living in which provinces in China have the biggest bra sizes and which provinces have the smallest in average? I know them all!” Beyond questions, other than this, Ma knows much more private things because Alibaba has the biggest database in China that has recorded the shopping habits of 500million users for over 10years.

Despite of the joke, Alibaba actually dig this deeper according to their database and found a curious trend: Women who bought larger bra sizes also tended to spend more online. As a result, Alibaba was able to target and analyze on different spending power and do better on tailored offers.

Another interesting story would be Walmart’s sales on diapers and beer, between which, there was a positive correlation when they analyzed the sales data. After some research, Walmart found out why. A man who was asked by his wife to buy a pack of diapers on his way home from work, would always fetch a pack of beer for himself to enjoy and relex on the couch after the long day, forgetting about the noise from the babies for a while. Seeing that, Walmart move the beer next to the diapers, and even make them a combo package for a better deal. As a result, the sales of both increased by 35%.

Other than the internal data, many retailers could also take advantage of external data to adjust their strategy. For example, when they find out there are hot keywords of some candies or hand spinner on twitter, facebook, instagram, retailers would increase the stock and put them in obvious shelf. Likewise, they would also adjust the supplies of some products according to the weather and traffic reports.

As for above examples, retailers are analyzing simple data to help with the sales. Still, they are just the tip of an iceberg, because the data they could use can be even more high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety. That is the so called big data, which is information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight, decision-making, and process automation. For retailers, big data will definitely help optimize supply chain logistics, improve store layouts, customize recommendation, improve customer experience and boost the sales in the end.

So how can retailers obtain more valuable data on their own? Why not start with getting TrustTag’s RFID tags to the products and making them smart throughout the whole process. The efficiency will be highly improved with the RFID technology due to location-based data, smarter inventory checking and faster check out process(TrustTag is also offering Self-Checkout Solution for retailers). If you are using our RFID tags for Source Tagging, you will even be able to keep track of the products from the factory, through distribution, warehouse and finally to the sales floor as our RFID tags will obtain more and more information in the process of source tagging. And the more the data are used, the more valuable and powerful they will become!

TrustTag EAS&RFID Tags

If you are interested in learning more about retails in the new era, please stay tuned for upcoming articles in our series of “New Retail, New Ideas”, which will explore details of specific technologies in new retail.