SNIPES, a leading global sneaker and streetwear retailer, is creating an omni-channel store approach to retail as the international clientel for the Germany and Holland-based seller grows.
Stocking global brands such as Nike and leading own brands such as Karl Kani, SNIPES has partnered with RFID provider Nedap for the project. The partnership with Nedap began in Germany earlier this year and has seen all German stores – equivalent to nearly half of all SNIPES stores in Europe –deploy iD Cloud before the end of 2022. The rest of the European stores will be added to the project before mid-2023.
The partnership will support SNIPES in successfully implementing omnichannel services such as Buy Online, Ship From Store in the future. Stock accuracy is one of the key basics that will lead to higher merchandise availability across all sales channels and an even more seamless shopping experience.
The business case for the RFID project was made on Nike and Levi’s, whose items are fully source-tagged. SNIPES’ own brands are currently being added to the project. Other source-tagged A-brands will be added before mid-2023.
Daniel Bontjer, Head of Retail Europe at SNIPES says: “In order to further consolidate our omnichannel approach, it is essential to provide our community with the products they want, regardless of the channel they choose to use. Nedap appeared to be the only vendor in the market that was able to strip away complexity from RFID projects. RFID is a great technology, and the possibilities are countless. Instead of wanting to do everything at once, we focused on improving stock accuracy, in-store refill, and DC-to-store replenishment.
“Having that stock accuracy baseline now opens the door to our digital channels. We can now lower our safety thresholds with a high degree of confidence, as we know that products in stores are also available to be sold online. Nedap’s pragmatic approach and understandable solution made a substantial impact immediately. Defining clear milestones makes it easier to implement RFID and paves the way to scale up when we are ready.”
Arjan Pruiksma, Business Solution Expert at Nedap, adds: “By partnering with Nedap and our KPI-driven approach, SNIPES successfully improved merchandise availability across stores. iD Cloud allows retailers to refill the sales floor based on real-time RFID inventory data. As a result, SNIPES no longer needs to overproduce, have high safety thresholds, or have conservative forecasting to ensure item availability. This partnership is a great example of our iD Cloud platform making stores more efficient. In addition, its user-friendly operation is perfect for daily use.”
