Lowe’s has unveiled a brand new answer, developed in its Innovation Labs division, designed to fight retail theft in means that’s invisible to clients via the usage of RFID chips and the blockchain.
Referred to as Project Unlock, the brand new expertise combines low-cost RFID chips and IoT sensors to activate energy instruments on the level of buy whereas additionally making a safe, publicly accessible and anonymized document of reliable purchases on the blockchain.
Organized retail crime has been on the rise since 2020 and prices retailers a mean of $700,000 per $1 billion in gross sales, based on the Nationwide Retail Federation. Options up till now have usually concerned locking up high-value merchandise, however Lowe’s new expertise may permit the corporate to throw away its padlocks and shelf gates.
“It’s our job to verify clients expertise as little friction as doable — that’s why we’re so involved about retail theft and dedicated to stopping it,” stated the corporate in a video demonstrating the brand new expertise. “We see a future the place applied sciences like Challenge Unlock may also help the complete retail ecosystem create an excellent setting for our clients.”
Challenge Unlock options two interconnected options. The primary is point-of-sale product activation by which solely merchandise which are legitimately bought are activated. Because of this if an influence instrument is stolen, it received’t work. The POS activation is powered by an RFID tag that’s embedded within the product by the producer and pre-loaded with every merchandise’s distinctive serial quantity. That serial quantity is also embedded within the field’s barcode, and the product is about to “inoperable.” When the barcode is scanned on the register, it’s then activated to be used.
The second piece of the answer is a clear buy document to hep retailers, producers and legislation enforcement authenticate validate possession. As soon as a buyer buys a product it’s recorded to the blockchain. Then these information, which include no private buyer info, might be checked by anybody. For instance, resellers like marketplaces can test the document to make sure they’re not shopping for a stolen good. To make this work, a novel NFT is created for every bodily product.
On the outset, Challenge Unlock can be deployed at Lowe’s shops throughout its energy instruments assortment to supply proof of idea, however a Lowe’s spokesperson stated the corporate “sees potential to make use of this invisible blockchain and RFID system for different objects in its shops and throughout the complete retail ecosystem.”