RADAR’s tech solves one of retail’s biggest operational challenges
RADAR offers a proprietary hardware and software platform that uses RFID and computer vision to track and precisely locate in-store inventory in near real time with 99 per cent accuracy, empowering store associates with the knowledge they need to provide a superior customer experience and enabling brand leaders to ensure each store has the right inventory in stock each day. In an interview with Fibe2Fashion Founder and CEO Spencer Hewett discusses the company’s platform for tracking inventory and its future scope.
Congratulations on securing $30 million in Series A funding for RADAR! Could you share some details about how this investment will specifically support your plans for expanding the company?
RADAR is using these funds to aggressively expand its go-to-market motion and start to work through its 40+ retailer backlog. In addition to expanding our customer and engineering teams, RADAR is ramping up hardware production and internal operations to unlock more simultaneous customer deployments in 2024.
Can you explain how your technology accomplishes the 99 per cent level of accuracy in inventory tracking and what benefits it brings to retailers?
Our proprietary hardware and software platform uses RFID tags and computer vision to track and precisely locate in-store inventory in real time with 99 per cent accuracy through a variety of signal processing breakthroughs. The solution completes a full inventory cycle count in near real-time, giving decision makers and other executives invaluable data insights that they can use to quickly correct inventory inaccuracies or inefficiencies. RADAR’s platform uses patented sensors that are installed in the ceiling of stores to read RFID tags on individual items and show associates exactly what is in their store and where. This level of inventory accuracy empowers associates to provide a better customer experience, allows retailers to fulfil omnichannel orders more consistently, and increases revenue by eliminating absolute shortages and optimising products across both back and front-of-house.
How does RADAR’s platform empower sales associates in brick-and-mortar stores, and what kind of impact does it have on the overall customer experience?
RADAR’s look-up app frees store associates from ever having to hunt for a product, style or size on either the sales floor or in the stockroom. RADAR’s apps serve the precise location of the item in near real-time to speed customer service and general pick times–if an item is in a store, associates will be able to find it and sell it to the customer. The restock app lets staff autonomously monitor what items need to be replenished on the selling floor in real time (and automatically creates pick lists), while the inventory operations app shows them what items are in stock and precisely where they are in the store, simplifying in-store and curbside pickup by making it faster and easier to pick and pack orders. The tech gives store staff the information they need so that every customer can find their order in store. In addition, products are consistently replenished from back to front of house, and all routed omnichannel orders can be efficiently fulfilled.
What sets your platform apart from other inventory-tracking solutions in the market, and how do you see the technology evolving in the coming years?
Our technological edge in accuracy and time in locating the item, driven by our proprietary hardware and software platform, is what sets our platform apart. While existing RFID system solutions can tell a brand what products are on-site with 70-85 per cent accuracy, they cannot identify where the items are located in a store, meaning store staff has to constantly hunt for specific SKUs. Handheld RFID scanners, the prevailing solution in most RFID enabled retailers today, require store associates to manually wand RFID tags at just the right angle, leading to errors and inaccurate counts. The devices require perfect human operational compliance for maximum effectiveness, and they cannot track products or their location in-store, in real time. RADAR’s solution is also different from the non-RFID tech used in Amazon Go stores, where dense grids of cameras have to be placed roughly every 5 square feet. These cameras are costly to install and cannot identify SKU-level differences in products like clothing.
RADAR’s sensors can each cover 500 square feet (meaning cheaper deployment) and can tell the difference between a small, medium and large grey shirt, in addition to identifying where each shirt is located in the store. Because RADAR’s patented sensors each contain four cameras, fewer are needed to cover a physical space and they can typically be quickly installed in a store overnight.
Today, we are reading items and providing inventory accuracy with RFID via our overhead sensors. In the future, computer vision (and the camera within our sensors) will help make that even more precise as well as enable product-to-people attribution, thus enabling analytics and just-walk-out checkout. While we are currently only using our technology for inventory management, we plan to eventually add POS (Point of Sale) and EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) capabilities.
How does RADAR’s autonomous retail technology maintain unprecedented speed and location accuracy, especially during high traffic times in the store?
Without getting too specific here, we use patented software development techniques to allow us to remain accurate even as the traffic, velocity of product, or density of product scales up or down in a store environment. Our accuracy and reliability during busy times has unlocked significant customer interest and was a driving force behind our rollout of RADAR to 500+ American Eagle stores.
Can you share insights on the partnership with American Eagle Outfitters and its expected impact on operations?
In 2023, RADAR went from technology start-up to bonafide retail tech player by signing American Eagle for 500+ locations to deploy over the next 12 months. AEO’s initial test with RADAR provided 99 per cent real-time visibility into inventory availability and placement. Our consistent 99 per cent read and corresponding lift to revenue motivated the retailer to implement RADAR’s RFID technology to unlock operational and inventory efficiencies, while arming store associates to best serve the needs of AEO customers. The technology is currently in around 100 key AEO locations. RADAR helps brands like AEO maximise the value of this RFID spend, improving their inventory accuracy and boosting labour productivity, generating significant ROI (Return on Investment) in a matter of weeks.
RADAR has received investments from a diverse group of investors, including Align Ventures and RX Ventures. How do these partnerships contribute to its growth and development?
Yes, we have received investment from a number of traditional venture capital firms, strategic investors linked to some of our retail customers, and other partners and members of the retail ecosystem. It is critically important to RADAR that we bring investors, strategic partners, and other mentors aboard that not only have deep experience across our key customer verticals, but also believe in the long-term product vision of RADAR and the various applications of our technology across industries.
Could you update us on the progress of ongoing pilot schemes with the two Fortune 500 retailers and the goals you aim to achieve with these collaborations?
The pilots with our other two Fortune 500 retailers are expanding to more stores, with an eye for expanding to a larger chunk of their fleets in 2024. Our goals with these retailers are the same as they were with American Eagle: dramatically improve inventory efficiency and accuracy, improve store associate productivity across all facets, and drive gains in omnichannel operations–all with a common goal of increasing per-store revenue.
What has been the feedback from your retail partners so far, and how have you incorporated their insights?
The feedback has been incredibly positive from our retailer corporate teams, store operations and retail teams, as well as store managers and associates. We work hand-in-hand to continuously improve our apps, our APIs, and our features to make RADAR even more useful to them on an ongoing basis.
Looking forward, what are some of the enhancements and features retailers can anticipate from RADAR in the coming years?
Computer vision will soon make our RADAR platform even more precise as well as enable the measurement of interactions between products and people, thus enabling analytics and automated check-out. RADAR’s ability to identify and locate items will finally enable the internet of things (IoT) across the retail supply chain (and eventually other verticals that we have our eye on), something often talked about, but historically limited to only a handful of applications.
How are AI, RFID, and computer vision reshaping inventory management in retail, and what advantages do they offer to retailers and consumers?
When leveraged together with inventory accuracy as precise as RADAR’s, this tech solves one of retail’s biggest operational challenges–in-store inventory optimisation—by empowering associates with the knowledge of what is in stock and where at all times, so they can deliver an excellent in-store shopping experience. According to a 2022 study, retailers worldwide lose $1.9 trillion each year due to inventory distortion (the cost of out-of-stocks and discounting due to overstocks) and 21 per cent of shoppers will leave a store and buy from a competitor instead when an item they want is out of stock. RADAR’s tech completes a full inventory cycle count every 60 seconds in a store, giving brand decision makers invaluable data insights that they can use to quickly correct shortages and overages.
How are advancements in technology helping retailers adapt to the changing preferences and behaviours of consumers?
Consumers have become increasingly accustomed to the speed and convenience of omnichannel and online shopping experiences due to the pandemic. The pandemic accelerated consumers’ comfort with shopping omnichannel and drove new behaviours, such as buying items online for in-store or curbside pickup (BOPIS). BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick up In-Store) became an increasingly popular norm across all categories, from footwear and apparel to accessories, home goods, furniture, and more. Creating a profitable and efficient omnichannel experience requires accurate inventory practices. Today’s retailers are experiencing between 65-80 per cent inventory accuracy in their stores and are faced with inventory “shrink” due to several factors, including theft (employee and external), inaccurate counting, misplaced items, and supply chain issues. Retailers can no longer rely just on data of where products are in their supply chain; they need near-perfect real-time inventory in their stores, especially when BOPIS/BOSS (Buy Online, Ship-to-Store) order success relies on these stores successfully functioning as fulfilment centres for e-commerce orders. Tech like RADAR’s is helping retailers streamline their inventory productivity and accuracy to meet these new consumer demands and behaviours.
How are retailers adapting to the growth of e-commerce to maintain seamless shopping across online and physical stores?
The popularity of BOPIS during the pandemic rippled through brick-and-mortar retailers, who experienced higher levels of e-commerce orders than ever before, and created a shift towards leveraging stores as fulfilment centres to process and ship online orders. As stores were closer to consumers in the ‘last mile’, orders shipped from stores were able to arrive much more quickly and cost effectively. A lack of visibility causes many issues for omnichannel orders, including cancellations (between 10-25 per cent of omnichannel orders are cancelled due to inventory no longer being in the store or store associates not being able to find items) and ‘split shipments’, where retailers have to ship some of the order from one store and the rest from another store or warehouse. Additionally, store associates tend to ‘jump’ the order to another store 5-6 times before either the retailer or customer cancels the order, which not only erodes retailer margin if ultimately fulfilled but also creates a negative experience and causes a low Net Promoter Score. It is imperative for retailers to be able to achieve inventory visibility in real-time down to the SKU, colour and size level and enable store associates to find any item a consumer is looking for or that they need to ‘pick’ for an omnichannel order.
What role is personalisation playing in the current retail landscape, and how is technology facilitating this?
The rise of and subsequent importance of e-commerce to retail cannot be overstated, both as a customer acquisition channel and a driver of new business with existing customers. Personalisation–whether through targeted advertising, digital membership and loyalty programmes, re-targeting based on abandoned shopping carts or special offers based on birthdays etc–is a lever for retailers that has been entirely enabled by technology. Personalisation allows retailers to not only better serve their customers, but also increase the value of each customer to the business. What has been missing from this modernised retailer picture, however, is an ability to bring personalisation to brick-and-mortar stores in a scalable way.
While in-person customer service driven by store associates represents a decent attempt at personalisation (and, indeed, is a very effective tool for luxury/high-end retailers or other retailers operating on a ‘showroom’ model), for most retailers this is not a scalable or cost-effective solution to drive personalisation. Most retailers need a way to gather and act on information from their customers. RADAR represents the bleeding edge of how this information can be gathered–our goal is to bring transformative technology to the retail brick-and-mortar environment, ultimately allowing retailers to bring the same level of personalisation to their in-store shoppers as they can to their digital/online shoppers.
What future developments can we anticipate in the retail technology space in the coming years?
In-line with most businesses operating with physical inventory, retailers have the twin demands of increasing revenues and decreasing their cost of goods sold—developments in retail technology will ultimately fit into one of these two categories. The ongoing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into most enterprise operating environments is also coming to retail; predictive behaviours and analytics could lead to cost savings or increased revenues. Consider a use-case where AI is used to proactively and predictively project inventory demand for all east-coast sales for a certain category of item (such as jeans) based on the results of a recent marketing campaign, or based on results of customer foot-traffic tracking and store-heat mapping to determine where customers are interacting with products the most. Consider another use-case where AI can autonomously distribute SA (sales associates) personnel within a store based on customer density, or even proactively distribute SAs between stores based on expected crowd density/product popularity. RADAR as a platform enables most of these future-facing use cases:
a.Personalisation and convenience to the customer
i.Fitting room solutions
ii.Customer has access to same information and tools as store associate (pathing to items, just-walk-out checkout, able to create their own pick lists, able to request different size of an item from their phone, Google Maps for in-store shopping)
b.Better security and loss prevention technology
i.Able to alert in real-time if thefts are happening, track items and share information to central database to help prevent thefts elsewhere
