When U.S. publishers talk about RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), they're discussing a technology that can track books from a printer to arrival at a bookstore. But now a bookstore chain in the Netherlands has just installed RFID in a second outlet, and some American chains have begun to look at how RFID might be applied to their businesses.
Simply put, RFID allows a bookseller to track every book in his store by tagging each title with a unique identifier. And there is no bigger booster of RFID than Jan Vink, the CIO of BGN, the company that owns Selexyz, the largest bookstore chain in the Netherlands. Selexyz installed an item-level RFID system in its store in Almere, outside Amsterdam, in April and was pleased enough with the results that it put the system in its Maastricht store last month. The implementation of RFID has enabled Selexyz to lower its costs while boosting sales and improving customer loyalty, Vink said during a recent stop in the U.S.
The way Selexyz uses RFID, books are tagged at Centraal Bookhuis, the Netherlands' largest wholesaler. When the books arrive at a store, the electronic tags allow staffers to process them in a fraction of the time it would take manually, cutting labor costs. "We can process 40,000 books in a few hours," Vink said, "and any errors in shipments can be handled immediately." Electronic processing also provides the store with a more accurate picture of its inventory, helping it to keep popular books in stock and return books that aren't selling. In addition to improving back-office efficiency, Vink said, RFID increased sales by making it easier for customers to figure out what book they want (80% of customers come into a Selexyz store not knowing what they want to buy, he said) and then locate the book in the store. A kiosk allows customers to see what's in stock and pinpoint the exact location of a title. For special orders, the system will e-mail customers when a book is in. The system has also allowed Selexyz to monitor consumer behavior. The most surprising finding in the Almere store, Vink said, was that the display in the left rear of the store was the bestselling area.
The technical backbone of the Selexyz system is powered by software developed by Progress Software Corp. of Bedford, Mass. Mark Palmer, a Progress v-p, said a system similar to Selexyz "can definitely be replicated in the U.S." While an RFID system would be "overkill" for most single independent stores, Palmer said, multi-store retailers with a centralized supply chain could benefit from RFID. He estimated costs for software and hardware, including tags and readers, to be about $75,000 per store.
With two stores outfitted with RFID, Vink said, Selexyz's goal for 2007 is to implement RF ID in all 16 of its general bookstores. And, he said, the RFID system in Maastricht includes a new feature—a security module that permits the retailer to keep track of titles that "are leaving the building without paying."
