RFID helps Lord & Taylor manage retail displays

Lord & Taylor faced an all-too-common retail problem: you can't sell what you don't display. Keeping the display floor properly stocked was particularly challenging in the shoe department of its flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York. Although sales associates worked diligently to restock the floor, they couldn't keep up with the daily retail activity. As a result, dozens of display samples went missing and the retailer lost out on opportunities for sales. The problem lay in the bar-code system the retailer was using to manage its shoe displays. Among other things, the bar code line-of-sight requirement meant associates had to physically touch every shoe to read its bar code, making inventory a slow and labor-intensive process.