Kookai now has improved visibility over its inventory, after introducing radio frequency identification (RFID) to its manufacturing facilities in Fiji and Sri Lanka.
The business has tagged all the garments it manufacturers with an integrated RFID Printed Fabric Label (PFL) and can now track the inventory process from production to quality control and then to finished goods.
This has dramatically improved its oversight of its inventory, allowing the business to conduct a stocktake of 30,000 items in 30 minutes at its Fiji factory – a process that used to take a few days.
With the enhanced visibility, the tech also allows the business to increase production of best-selling items, reducing the amount of out-of-stocks it has in-store, improving the customer experience.
Kookai Australia loss prevention and compliance manager Amelia Adey said RFID allows the business to capture more sales.
"We wanted to remove any customer dissatisfaction due to out-of-stock items or missed sales due to inventory not being accurately represented in our stock file.
"Stocktakes can be done daily now instead of on a twice-yearly basis which enables us to provide accurate stock updates to our customers in real time.
"Having control over the majority of our supply chain due to owning our own factories, made the implementation of RFID an obvious choice in achieving these goals," she said.
The introduction of RFID forms part of Kookai's overarching omnichannel strategy, which aims to have all clothing and stores equipped with RFID, enabling it to track all items within its supply chain, speed up check out times, enable online orders to be fulfilled from local stores and provide consumers with extra information about the products.
The next phase of the project – which is already underway – is to extend the RFID tagging to its remaining external suppliers, increasing visibility further into its supply chain.
This will allow the business to track where raw materials are sourced and where they are in transit to help remove any supply chain bottlenecks.
It also means that any products Kookai has not produced itself will deliver the same in-store benefits for staff and customers and reduces the need for any stock to be counted or tracked manually.
"By digitising the stock receipting process we can eliminate the need for manual counting of deliveries, leaving our sales assistants free to put the focus back on the customers rather than administration," Adey added.
"We have been able to significantly reduce our stock availability buffers on our 'Find in Store' function online, with confidence that the stock will actually be available," she said.
Other stages planned for the RFID rollout include the integration of the tech at the point-of-sale system replacing barcodes with RFID at the till – enabling a quicker checkout process by removing the need to scan the item.
The business is also exploring the possibility of RFID readers in the changing rooms to provide further customer service, and to collect metrics on product sell through.
Longer term, Kookai is assessing the use of RFID to enhance the traceability of its production and raw materials, helping it to convey its ethics and sustainability story to its customers.