Mexico City’s Common People Uses RFID Technology to Deliver a Premium, Interactive Shopping Experience to Retail Customers

UPM Raflatac and Digilogics SA. de CV. announced their partnership with Common People, an exclusive retailer in Mexico City, Mexico, that serves not only as a showcase concept store for the city’s best art and design, but also as a real-life demonstration of how RFID technology can transform customer-facing retail processes.

Common People is the first independent merchant in Mexico to implement a comprehensive item-level RFID solution that uses interactive sales tools to cross-sell and up-sell merchandise, both in individual departments and in smart fitting rooms, while providing the store’s owners and micro-retailers with rich insights into customer behavior and preferences.

Located in an historic California colonial-style mansion on Emilio Castelar Street in the exclusive Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City, Common People offers a thoroughly uncommon shopping experience. Visitors can browse amongst carefully curated luxury goods from 40 leading brands, including global designers Caroline Herrera Bridal, Comme des Garçons, Dior and Prada, as well as select national designers. The store features a wide array of different departments operated by individual micro-retailers, who sell unique and limited-edition goods in an intimate retail environment that has been outfitted with custom art, furniture and shelving.

All goods are unobtrusively tagged with UPM Raflatac UHF RFID tags, including ShortDipole hangtags, which are used for apparel; ShortDipole tags, which are used for books and shoes; Trap tags, which are used for media, books, jewelry and cosmetics; and Web tags, which are used for sunglasses. Implementing item-level tagging not only streamlines inventory taking, goods restocking and checkout processes, but also enables the delivery of a personalized shopping experience to the store’s customers.

The RFID solution, which was designed and integrated by Digilogics, includes two RFID printers from Zebra Technologies; a hand-held RFID reader and two RFID-enabled point-of-sale stations from Convergence Systems Limited; inventory management software from EnaSys, LLC; and interactive sales tools from 5Stat, including a smart display and fitting room.

The smart display offers an interactive mirror that provides product information and a built-in camera customers can use to take pictures and e-mail them to others for shopping advice. Meanwhile, the RFID-enabled smart fitting room is outfitted with an interactive touchscreen that allows shoppers to scan goods for additional product information, browse complementary items and electronically request that additional merchandise be delivered for their review. These requests are sent automatically to sales employees’ PDAs, enabling them to deliver superior customer service. The integrated RFID solution not only provides data on current inventory positions and item sales, but also which goods were handled, but not purchased. These insights allow Common People’s owners and micro-retailers to optimize their purchasing and merchandising strategies on an ongoing basis.

“Common People uses RFID technology to transform contemporary retailing,” says Luca Pastorello, partner, Digilogics SA. de CV. “Far more than just an inventory management tool, RFID technology can be used to deliver a high value browsing experience and support shopper decision making, resulting in higher product sales and lasting customer loyalty.”