Dive Brief:

• Levi’s flagship store in San Francisco is using RFID tags on every item in stock to track inventory and sales data in-store and upload it to the cloud. 
• The tags connect to an IoT platform from chipmaker Intel, which aggregates the data and applies analytics to supply real-time insights on customer demand, stock availability and more. 
• A 3% improvement in inventory accuracy typically delivers a 1% sales lift, according to a keynote speech from CEO Brian Krzanich at Intel’s IoT Insights this week. 

Dive Insight:

While it’s relatively easy to track inventory of bagged stock on warehouse shelves, it has so far been more difficult to track in-store inventory in real time. Now, Intel and Levi’s have partnered on a system that uses RFID chips and Intel’s IoT cloud technology to do just that.

Installed at Levi’s Plaza retail store in San Francisco, the system attaches RFID chips to items and uploads on stock, sales, and other information to Intel’s cloud. Once there, the system performs analytics to tell what’s selling and what’s not in real time.

Equipped with such a system, brick-and-mortar stores could prove to be as accurate as any channel in an omnichannel fulfillment scenario. And according to Intel chief Brian Krzanich, every 3% improvement in inventory accuracy delivers a 1% lift in sales.