European fashion retailer C&A is accelerating its RFID deployment by deploying the technology at all of its stores in France by the end of the summer. One-third of its France rollout was completed in 2015. An additional 164 stores are currently being outfitted with the technology, as is C&A’s France-based distribution center. C&A began its RFID journey in 2013 wit a five-store pilot in Germany.

C&A is integrating Checkpoint Systems’ RFID solution into its France-based DC to significantly scale up the number of RFID-tagged items and enable full merchandise visibility within the supply chain. This move also enables the retailer to shift the creation of store advance ship notices from the supplier to the DC, based on an automated and more accurate process. The reading performance, speed and flexibility of the Checkpoint DC solution, on top of having one single software system for both DC and store, were crucial for  C&A to optimize the use of the RFID solution.

“With RFID-enabled DCs and stores, we will improve our stock data accuracy and reduce not-on-shelf-but-on-stock (NOSBOS) so that customers find the right color, size and fit,” says Joachim Wilkens, head of functional IT and supply chain development at C&A Europe. “With RFID, we are building the basis for the C&A omni-channel strategy.”

C&A has already deployed RFID throughout Germany, and recently added RFID source tagging to new product categories including menswear, children’s clothing and suits.

By utilizing Checkpoint’s ™ software, C&A will further automate its inventory data reporting, allowing it to add new stores and apparel categories. By integrating the software into its existing IT architecture, C&A can easily scale-up its adoption of RFID, adding any number of stores and additional countries in a short period of time. The retailer is also able to use country-specific master data attributes to manage multi-country merchandise information.

The new integrated reporting facility will include sales, stock and replenishment data, providing the apparel retailer with real time, full visibility of its merchandise and sales.

Once the in-store roll-out is complete, employees will be able to place several items onto the POS counter simultaneously, where they will be automatically read and processed during the transaction, increasing the service level to consumers.