How RAIN RFID Is Transforming Retail and Supply Chain Visibility

Ashley Burkle: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Bill Wohl: Also returning to the podcast is David Perrine of ACSIS. David, welcome back. I’d like to start with you. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of accuracy in inventory and how important it is in a lot of segments, particularly so in retail, right?

David Perrine: Yes, and Bill, we are so pleased at ACSIS to have Ashley join us today and bring her experiences in the retail world. If it doesn’t come out in the podcast, some quick search by our listeners will determine that the adoption rate of the RFID technology that we’ll be speaking to in just a moment is almost 93% in the retail sector.

Looking at that from an ACSIS standpoint, where so much of our business is on the B2B side of things, we’re really excited about how this adoption in the retail industry could be brought upstream to CPG manufacturers, food and beverage, and many different industries around the world.

I’ll leave you with this before we turn it back over to our expert, Ashley Burkle. At the moment, reports indicate there’s just under $2 trillion in inventory distortion around the world. It’s created by a variety of reasons, but one big one is disruption to the supply chain. We believe that while we can use the success of inventory visibility, accuracy, and labor efficiency realized in the retail sector, it is directly adaptable to the industrial sector. This is a great compare and contrast between two industry segments that can benefit from each other’s knowledge.

Bill Wohl: Thanks, David. Ashley, welcome to the program. Let’s start with a quick description of Impinj — what you do as a business, and where you fit into the company.

Ashley Burkle: Great, thank you. For the last 20 years, Impinj has designed, manufactured, and invented ways to connect everything. Impinj is an IoT platform provider, and we focus on RAIN RFID — a passive UHF RFID. It’s the kind you think about being used in retail for connecting inventory or in baggage for airline tracking.

Our RAIN RFID platform includes endpoint ICs, which are the little silicon inside the tag, reader chips, readers, and gateways. I’ve been in retail and CPG for about 15 years, and it’s definitely a passion of mine. Over the past several years with Impinj, I’ve been excited to bring this technology to retailers — which I saw as such a gap before I joined the company.

Bill Wohl: It strikes us, as we’ve talked about supply chain in this podcast series, that there are a lot of issues in the retail space with data at the center. You’re correct, David, that people think about retail as a B2C business, but behind the endpoint stores, it’s very much a B2B supply chain with manufacturers, distributors, shippers, and others along the lines.

Ashley, as you talk to retailers, I imagine topics like on-hand goods, inventory accuracy, and loss prevention are big. What are you hearing from customers about the top priorities in retail supply chain?

Ashley Burkle: Absolutely. Over the past couple of years, disruption has put retailers in a difficult position. Most scrambled to figure out how to continue serving shoppers and keeping their business alive. We saw a need for flexibility and agility in the supply chain, all the way through the value chain to stores.

Think about how we shopped curbside pickup, buy online and pick up in-store. Retailers needed to figure out how to accomplish that quickly. Those using RAIN RFID were able to do it because they knew what they had and where they had it. That was a big part of the success stories we saw.

Going forward, having a better understanding of what you have and where you have it visibility and accuracy will continue to be critical for retailers to get goods to shoppers when and where they want them.

Bill Wohl: We like to talk in this podcast series about real-life examples of how this works. I had one recently — I went shopping for a pair of pants at a nationally known retailer. With the supply chain problems, the available selections were small. But this retailer was doing such a good job understanding their inventory that they located, in my size, the exact pants and color I wanted.

The clerk told me, “This is the only pair in your size anywhere in the country. It’s on the West Coast, but we’re going to ship it to you. Will you buy it?” If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that shoppers will choose retailers who can deliver that kind of service, rather than those who say, “I don’t have any, and I don’t know when I’ll get some.”

That has to be a common thread in your conversations with retailers operating in such a supply-chain-constrained environment.

Ashley Burkle: Absolutely. As shoppers ourselves, we know that when we’re disappointed, we’re less likely to return to that retailer. When retailers can confidently expose their inventory — what we call “available to promise” online — and deliver on it, they build brand loyalty.

The operational value of RAIN RFID underpins that promise. Retailers can connect you to a pair of pants thousands of miles away and do it quickly. Traditional inventory systems can’t do this — often, they can’t even figure out what’s in their own store, let alone connect every store, warehouse, and distribution center in the organization.

Bill Wohl: I love the expression about confidently promising the customer the good. While the pandemic will eventually end, the way people conduct business — B2C or B2B — has probably changed forever. Would you agree?

Ashley Burkle: Absolutely. Before the pandemic, retailers carried safety stock — too much of an item — to ensure they could meet demand. But excess inventory ties up money. Why have more than you need?

Selling down to the last item is a big deal in retail, and RAIN RFID lets you do that. Retailers can pick to the last item, avoid markdowns, and increase revenue by selling during the correct season to the shopper who wants it, wherever they are.

Bill Wohl: It’s fascinating that just-in-time inventory, developed in automotive manufacturing, has reached all the way to the consumer. My example was in apparel, but what other retail segments are seeing these benefits?

Ashley Burkle: Today, the largest adoption is still in apparel, footwear, department stores, and mass merchants. But more subsegments are seeing the value — electronics, beauty, DIY, and drugstores.

Many benefits trace back upstream into manufacturing and supply chain. For example, CPG companies already complying with retailer tagging requirements are now realizing they can use RAIN RFID internally, too. Once items are tagged, they can automate their supply chain, improve speed, and increase throughput.

Bill Wohl: We talk about retail level benefits, but what about tagging at different levels — item, carton, or pallet? How do companies decide?

Ashley Burkle: That’s the first question I’d recommend any enterprise ask: “What am I going to tag and why?” At retail, it’s individual items — that’s where the value is.

Upstream, tagging cartons improves throughput tracking, confirms shipments, and enables accurate advanced shipping notices. Some industries, like quick-service restaurants, use carton and pallet tagging. Others still see value in item-level tagging because you can read the entire box contents in one pass and confirm accuracy before it ships.

Bill Wohl: We can’t talk retail without discussing loss prevention. What’s RFID’s role there?

Ashley Burkle: It’s huge and growing. Using RAIN RFID at the exit can replace traditional EAS, but with real-time alerts that show exactly what left, where, and when. This is data retailers never had before, enabling proactive strategies instead of reactive ones. It could be the next big opportunity in loss prevention.

Bill Wohl: Last question, I’m hearing about “dark warehouses.” What is that?

Ashley Burkle: A dark warehouse is fully automated, with minimal human interaction. RAIN RFID is crucial here — it supports automation, speed, cost reduction, and ensures goods ship out on time, even with labor shortages.

Bill Wohl: David, when leaders face so many possible projects, where should they start?

David Perrine: Any journey begins with the first step. Reach out to Impinj, ACSIS, or your current supplier to start exploring. There’s still some mystery about RFID, but it’s stable, scalable, cost-efficient, and yields highly successful projects. We’re always available to answer questions and help companies take that first step.

Bill Wohl: Choose the right partners, always good advice. David, thanks for being on. Ashley, thanks for joining us. I’m sure we’ll talk to you and Impinj again soon.

Ashley Burkle: Thank you so much.

Bill Wohl: That wraps up today’s podcast. My thanks to ACSIS for making this series possible. We welcome your comments and questions, connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m Bill Wohl. On behalf of ACSIS and our guests, thanks for joining us. We’ll talk again soon.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to Supply Chain Visibility Stories, brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Visit us at ACSISinc.com, or find ACSIS Inc. on LinkedIn and Twitter. Join us next time.