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Estee Lauder, a world-renowned cosmetics and skin care company, is applying RFID technology to the sale of its LAB series of men’s skin care products. At every booth where RFID technology can be used, customers only need to pick up the LAB series products they want to know about, and they can see a video about this product.
Visualization
At present, Estee Lauder has opened 5 stores in the UK and North America that can use RFID technology. In these 5 stores, customers can better understand the LAB series of men’s skin care products through video interaction. When the customer picks up the product to leave the shelf, he can activate the system and see a video about the product; and when the customer puts it back in place, the video turns off. This is part of a system based on RFID technology. This system is jointly manufactured by Lime IT&Media Solutions, a seller of IT system readers and RFID hardware, and Remote Media, a British company known as Signagelive, which specializes in digital signage systems. This technology can not only provide customers with product videos, but also track and understand the effect of product display by storing the data on the Signagelive server to record in detail the frequency of a product being picked up by customers and comparing it with the point of sale in the store.
This system was first used in one store in October 2008 and has now been expanded to five stores. The Estée Lauder Companies stated that they want to increase the joy of shopping. The Estée Lauder Companies used to be looking for an interactive system that proactively enables customers to get more information about the product instead of asking customers to find information.
When the customer picks up the product, the reader in the shelf no longer receives the information sent by the electronic tag of the product, prompting the system to play the video.
Currently, the four stores of House of Fraser in the United Kingdom have applied this system, two of which are located in Oxford Street and White City, London, and the other two are located in Bristol and Belfast. This system was also installed in the Holt Renfrew store in Toronto, Canada. According to Lime IT and Remote Media, if the application of the system brings a good return on investment, Estee Lauder will hope to expand the system to more stores in Europe and North America. The Estée Lauder Companies itself did not respond to this matter.
“The entire system is a solution designed based on RFID technology as a mechanism to convey content to users,” said Dominic Lennon, president of Lime IT. “Users don’t need to press any buttons, scan or touch any objects to get information, they only need to do one action by instinct-pick up the product.”
Workflow and other functions
The system includes a booth with an RFID reader and an LCD screen. In the UK, the screen size is 12 inches, while in Toronto it is 46 inches. A 13.56MHz active label produced by Texas Instruments is attached to the bottom of each LAB series product, which conforms to the ISO 15693 standard. When the product is placed on the shelf, the reader in the shelf continuously receives the unique ID number sent by the electronic tag of the product. When the customer picks up the product, the reader cannot read the label, so that the Signagelive system software can play a video about the product. Lime IT said that in the first two days before the technology was applied in the first store, 800 customers used the system.
In addition, whenever the product is picked up and put down, this action will also be transmitted to the Signagelive server via the network, and the server then stores and analyzes the data. Estee Lauder can log on to the password-protected Signagelive website, check the activity of the booth, and compare the result with the actual sales of the brand in the store on that day. In the first year of using Signagelive, Estee Lauder and other Signagelive customers can enjoy preferential services for free purchase of booths and RFID hardware. After one year, manufacturers will charge them a monthly fee.
In addition to broadcasting videos, the system also provides other functions. Cosmetic consultants can put the “Skin Consultant” label on one of the shelves. When the reader reads the unique ID number of the tag, it activates the camera to take photos of the customer’s skin. At this time, an enlarged picture of the customer’s skin will be displayed on another LCD display, which is convenient for the consultant to analyze the customer’s skin quality and recommend suitable products. There is also a “monitoring” tag, which the consultant can place next to the reader to instruct the system to enter maintenance mode. Consultants can also add new products to the system and replay product videos.
New attempt
Remote Media was established in the mid-1990s, initially to provide digital signs and interactive touch screens for ATM machines and other financial services. The CEO of Remote Media, Jason Cremins, said that in the past few years, the company has introduced RFID technology. “The traditional way is to use a touch screen, which is a leap. But by using RFID, this thing becomes more intuitive.”
Lennon refused to say the specific price or general cost of the system, only that the price varies according to the solution. “This system is not cheap, it is a high-end product, interested merchants will weigh its price to decide whether to use it.” Cremins said.
Cremins hopes to make this service more commonplace through more in-depth trials and RFID reader and tag price drops. A British retailer is also experimenting with this system. When a customer picks up a labelled DVD, the LCD screen will display the name of the DVD movie. Two retailers are currently trialing this system since December 2008.
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