Yeah. That, and, we can Thank God they didn't put out yet another useless and pointless message on how the "sales funnel" has been growing... Probably, since they stopped posting news about that, we can just assume that when they stopped talking about the sales funnel, they also stopped trying to sell tags to anyone other than Staples ???
One of my prior posts here was slammed by a critic because they saw my post as "touting" this stock. I pointed out that if my post was a "tout" it wasn't ME touting, since all I had done was post what their key customer had said, and if the biggest problem they have is their primary customers are continually "touting" them, you could obviously do a lot worse than that ???
Other criticisms were that the systems were too expensive, so they clearly made no economic sense and purchases could not be justified. I posted that I expected Staples, and not ABSY critics, probably knew more about what made the best economic sense FOR THEM ??? And, expensive or not, you have to upgrade outdated store systems to remain competitive. The decision isn't about whether or not to upgrade, it is about when to upgrade and what to choose when you do ??
I thought the key financial advantage would be much better inventory management which would help keep the hottest products in stock, delivering higher value from high volume turnover in hot products. Also, a major reduction in labor costs for inventory, and a big impact on reducing shrinkage of high value items, all three of which would be hugely and disproportionately beneficial in an recessionary environment. I also noted I thought roll out would accelerate with recession... for both $$$ impact on the bottom line and for emergent competitive reasons ?
So, what does the customer have to say now ? Hmmmm ???
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There were even more benefits that Staples realized, including almost fully eradicated shrink and a drop in return-to-vendor dollars, but the labor savings and increased gross margins achieved ROI by themselves. "When you look at those two alone, the system pays for itself very quickly."
The strong results mean Staples will push ahead with deployment of RFID in other locations. "We've done five stores, and we're going to double that with another ten, and just keep seeing if the numbers prove out." Soares said that Staples US is watching very closely to see if the technology should also be adopted Stateside.
When asked how Staples was able to achieve such positive results and strong ROI, while other retailers struggle with gaining benefit from RFID, Soares answered that their approach had been to identify pain points first, then attack them with the technology. Soares identified cycle counting as just such a pain point. "Cycle counting is not productive; it's a waste of time and money," he said. "The approach I took is, 'How can I save the business some labor dollars?'" Does he think other retailers could see the same ROI? "For whomever does cycle counts, yes, there is no question about it."
