Taiwanese auction company BMG Group uses RFID technology to auction items
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Second-hand luxury goods auction company BMG Group is using RFID technology as part of the automated collection of information for auction sellers, evaluations, and auction processes. According to the company, the system was officially launched in September 2015, reducing the time for the inventory of auction items and ensuring that there are no fakes in the process of receiving, evaluating or selling. The system is provided by the Taiwan subsidiary of EPC Solutions, using passive EPC Gen2 UHF RFID tags, fixed and hand-held readers, software for managing RFID reading data and sending these data to the ERP system.
Historically, BMG was a pawn shop in Tainan City. And now, the company has grown into an auction house focusing on the auction of luxury goods or high-value items (such as handbags, wallets, shoes and watches made by manufacturers such as LV, Chanel, and Rolex). The company holds auctions for 3 to 5 days in hotels in Taiwan and China every 3 to 5 weeks. There are more goods in September and March each year.
(Each auction item of BMG is attached with an EPC Solutions RFID tag with a built-in Alien Higgs-3 chip)
Recently, the company began to cooperate with EPC Taiwan to develop an RFID system for tracking item purchases, evaluations, auctions and certifications. Before the September auction, the company conducted a trial run.
When a customer contacts BMG to sell luxury goods, the company will send employees to the customer’s home or office to collect auction information and provide evidence of receipt of the goods. When the item arrives at BMG’s office in Tainan, the appraiser will inspect the item, determine the value of the item, and set an appraisal price.
After the auction, BMG will pay the seller and provide the buyer with an authentication certificate.
BMG said that the manual method has some shortcomings, and this shortcoming has been magnified as the company expands its business volume. For staff, tracking unsold items was also a problem. In addition, buyers often complain that counterfeit products are mixed into auction houses. However, BMG was also unable to determine how these fakes were mixed into the auction.
BMG wanted a system to track the receipt of auction items, from delivery to appraisers to the auction, and to ensure that the items were not dropped. Tory Yuan, BMG strategy manager, said: “I didn’t buy and deploy RFID technology for inventory tracking and identification.”
Using this RFID-based system, each item is attached with an RFID tag with a built-in Alien Higgs-3 chip. For example, if the seller has four items to sell, the staff will bring a document containing 4 tags to the seller’s home or office. Then, the staff will read these four tags and bind them to the auction item. Then, the staff will use plastic ties to lock it to the auction item and provide the seller with receipt. Since the plastic cable tie needs to be cut before it can be placed on other items, it becomes very difficult for items to fall off the bag.
Then, the auction item will be sent to the appraiser, and these tags will be read again. According to TH Liu, president of EPC Taiwan, the appraiser will enter the product-related information, and then the seller will use the ALR-9640 fixed desktop reader to bind the information with the tag ID. Next, the appraiser will create an authentication certificate to show the value of the product or return items deemed worthless to the seller.
These data will be stored on the software provided by EPC Taiwan in the BMG database. The company will store ID numbers, seller information, auction item data, and auction results. These data will also be transferred to BMG’s ERP and POS software.
Before the auction, BMG employees will install a temporary ALR-9900+
RFIDRemovable door, every auction item with a buyer will exit through this door. At this time, the reader will read the ID number of each tag and update the item information on the software to be auctioned. At the same time, the buyer will receive an authentication certificate for the ID number of the link tag. Then, the label will be removed from the item, and the buyer only needs to show the authentication certificate when repairs are needed. BMG employees can enter the ID number on the certificate to automatically obtain all the data of the product.
If the item is not sold, the staff will use the Atid 870 handheld reader to read the tag and compare it with the sold item. In this way, the company can ensure that every unsold item is still in the company.
Yuan said: “The process is operating normally, and the biggest benefit is to reduce the inventory count time after the auction.”
In the past, the company needed to use 4 employees to spend 3 hours to take inventory of unsold items, but now it only needs 2 employees to take half an hour to take inventory. The system can also prevent errors. He also said: “The staff are often tired after the auction, and they are more likely to make mistakes. With the RFID system, the error probability is significantly reduced. In addition, the hotel rental fee is quite expensive, and the inventory time is reduced and the company’s expenses are also reduced. .”
Since the system can place items out of the package, the technology also helps increase the trust between buyers and sellers.
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