Philip’s response, drawn from more than 20 years of deploying RFID across retail, pharma, manufacturing and logistics, is that they weren’t wrong. The project had failed. But the technology wasn’t the reason.

“When most businesses say RFID failed, what they usually mean is the project didn’t deliver what they expected. And that’s a very different problem.”

In his experience, the readers worked. The tags worked. The software worked. The failure happened somewhere else — in workshops, in assumptions, in shortcuts, in decisions nobody thought would matter later. Usually long before the hardware was ever installed.

Because operations, as Philip puts it, always wins.

So what actually decides whether an RFID project succeeds? Philip walked the Warsaw audience through seven questions he’s seen determine the outcome, time and again.

2. Does the design match operational reality?

This is where many projects start getting into trouble.

No matter what the process diagram says. No matter what the workshop agreed. No matter what the presentation deck looked like. Operations always wins.

Philip illustrated this with examples that will be familiar to anyone who’s deployed RFID in a real environment. The warehouse that was designed around specific transfer points – perfect read performance, perfect testing – until someone started using dock door 417. The operation where staff were told items would only ever be stacked four high. Except when they weren’t.

Every one of those moments is a decision that looked fine on paper and caused problems in practice. RFID needs to be designed for how operations actually runs, not how it’s supposed to run.

3. Has every compromise been accounted for?

RFID is a technology where small compromises become very visible, very quickly.

Engineering shortcuts happen for understandable reasons: budget, time, complexity. But eventually, operations pays for them. The wrong tag on the wrong material in the wrong environment can destroy confidence in an entire project. Choose the wrong device and people will work around it. Install the wrong hardware and the business stops trusting the data.

Once operators start questioning reads, missing events, or seeing inconsistent results, they stop relying on the system. And the project starts collapsing quietly in the background.

As Philip puts it: if it wasn’t for physics, RFID would be easy. The technology is incredibly capable. But the real world is messy, and operations can make it even messier.

4. Has the system been tested properly?

Properly means in the real world. Not in perfect conditions. Not in controlled demos. Not in ideal workflows.

Everything works beautifully in the lab. Perfect tag orientation, perfect spacing, perfect packaging. And then reality arrives. Because the lab doesn’t rush. The lab doesn’t improvise. The lab doesn’t ignore process. Real operations can, and will.

One of the most common mistakes Coriel sees with Proof of Concepts is that they become stakeholder theatre. Everyone gathers around expecting RFID reads to work and dashboards to update. But that’s not the purpose of a PoC. The purpose is to discover failure – to test and refine early, before scale makes it expensive.

If you don’t test for reality, reality will test the project for you.

5. Does the data integrate with the business?

RFID alone doesn’t create value. Business decisions do.

Nobody wakes up and says they need more data. Businesses already have too much data. What they need is clarity – better decisions, faster decisions, more accurate decisions, made in real time. That only happens when RFID data becomes operationally useful, flowing into the systems and workflows where decisions are actually made.

The question to ask isn’t “can we capture this data?” It’s “what will the business do differently because of it?”

6. Are processes actually aligned?

RFID is brutally honest. It exposes inconsistency very quickly, and sometimes that’s uncomfortable.

Businesses often expect RFID to fix operational problems automatically. It doesn’t. What it does is reveal them. The unofficial workarounds. The hidden inefficiencies. The exceptions nobody wanted to talk about. Suddenly the business can see exactly what’s actually happening, and that means being ready to change the way it works.

This is where RFID stops being a technology project and becomes a change project. The businesses that get the most value from RFID are the ones that treat it that way from the start.

7. Will it scale?

Pilots are easy. Scale is hard.

Pilots are clean, focused, well-supported and carefully managed. Real operations are chaotic. Scaling RFID means designing for that chaos, not for perfection. And critically, no two operations are ever truly identical. Different layouts, different workflows, different behaviours, what works perfectly in one site can struggle badly in another.

Scaling RFID isn’t replication. It’s adaptation. Operational and environmental detail matters at scale in ways it never does in a pilot. The businesses that scale successfully are the ones that design for variation from the beginning.

The Coriel Solutions team keeping the forum alert with branded coffee

Get these questions right and something interesting happens

Projects scale faster; adoption improves; trust improves. Operations embraces the system rather than working around it. And businesses realise the value they invested in. As Philip told the Warsaw audience: the technology is rarely the hardest part. Understanding operations, that’s the hard part. Because operations always wins. And when you respect that? RFID doesn’t suck anymore.

A big thank you to our partners Data Elektronik and to Zebra Technologies for hosting such a great event.

Coriel Solutions are RFID integration specialists with over 20 years of experience delivering projects across retail, pharma, logistics, manufacturing and beyond.

Do you fancy a coffee to discuss an RFID deployment that you’re planning or to discuss a project delivery  issue that you’re working through? Get in touch.

What a Digital Product Passport is, in plain language

Strip away the regulatory language and a Digital Product Passport is a persistent, machine-readable record that travels with a product through its entire life. It is not a document in the traditional sense, not a certificate that sits in a folder or a label printed at dispatch. It is a live dataset, accessible via a 2D barcode or RFID tag on the physical item, that holds structured information about what the product is made of, where its components originated, how it was manufactured, and what should happen to it at the end of its useful life.

The key distinction from existing product data practices is that the DPP must be item-level, not model-level. A product specification sheet describes a category of sofa. A Digital Product Passport describes this sofa – the specific unit, with its specific batch of fabric, its specific frame components sourced from a specific supplier, assembled at a specific facility on a specific date. That level of granularity is what makes DPP both powerful and demanding: it is powerful because it enables genuine traceability and accountability across the supply chain; it is demanding because most retailers’ current data architectures were not designed with item-level identity in mind.

Why bulky categories are particularly affected

Furniture and large-format retail faces DPP requirements with a particular set of complications that do not apply to, say, a single-component garment or a packaged consumer good. A sofa is not one product – it is an assembly of frame materials (typically hardwood, engineered wood, or metal), upholstery fabrics and foams, fixings, and feet, each of which may have come from a different supplier, a different country of origin, and a different tier of the supply chain. A garden structure may combine treated timber, galvanised steel, and injection-moulded plastic components. A wardrobe flat-pack includes panels, rails, fittings, and fixings sourced from multiple inputs.

The DPP requirement does not just ask ‘what is this product made of?’ at a high level. It asks for data that supports repairability – can a consumer replace a specific component? It asks for recycling information – which materials in this product are recyclable, and through which channels? It asks for provenance – where did the timber come from, and can that be verified? For categories where the bill of materials is complex and multi-tiered, answering those questions with confidence requires data that flows reliably from supplier to manufacturer to retailer to consumer, which is precisely where most current supply chain data architectures fall short.

The operational reality: item identity, data capture, and lifecycle events

The operational challenge of DPP is not primarily a technology problem, it is a data discipline problem. The technology to capture, store, and serve the required information already exists and is proven at scale. The harder question is whether the processes, the supplier relationships, and the internal data governance are in place to generate information that is accurate, consistent, and complete enough to populate a DPP with confidence.

Item-level identity is the foundation. Every unit must carry a unique identifier, not a shared model number, but a serial identifier that distinguishes this unit from every other unit of the same product. That identifier must be present from the point of manufacture or import, and it must remain consistent and readable through warehousing, delivery, consumer use, and eventual return or disposal. The lifecycle events that the DPP must record: manufacture, quality check, despatch, delivery, repair, return, recycling, are all anchored to that identifier. Without reliable item-level identity, the event record is incomplete, and the passport is not trustworthy.

For most bulk retailers, the honest assessment is that item-level identity currently exists in some parts of the operation and not others. High-value SKUs may be individually serialised. Lower-value components in a kit are often not. The DPP requirement will change that calculus, because a passport that covers the sofa frame but not the cushion inserts or the leg fixings is not a complete record of the product. Getting to full item-level coverage across a complex product range is not trivial, but it is achievable with a phased approach that prioritises by risk, value, and regulatory timeline.

The risk of doing nothing: supplier data gaps, manual admin, and compliance exposure

The organisations that will struggle most with DPP are not those that lack technology, they are those that have accumulated years of workarounds: product data held in spreadsheets, supplier certificates stored as PDFs in shared drives, provenance information that exists as a verbal assurance rather than a verifiable record. The DPP does not accept workarounds. It requires structured, machine-readable data that can be interrogated by regulators, auditors, and consumers. If the data does not exist in that form, the compliance gap is not a software problem that can be solved quickly – it is a data collection problem that takes time to address at the supplier level.

The commercial risk sits alongside the compliance risk. As DPP becomes established in the market, consumer-facing access to product data, via a QR code scan in-store or at home, will become a differentiating factor. Retailers who cannot provide it will face questions from sustainability-conscious consumers and from major retail partners who will increasingly require DPP-ready supply chains as a condition of listing. The retailers who treat DPP purely as a compliance exercise will find themselves meeting the minimum while their competitors are using the same infrastructure to build trust and loyalty. 

RFID’s role: reliable identity and automated event capture across the lifecycle

RFID is not the only way to link a physical product to its digital passport – 2D barcodes and QR codes are also valid and widely used – but for bulk retail, it is the most operationally practical solution at scale. The reason is straightforward: RFID does not require line of sight, reads multiple items simultaneously, and generates event data automatically at each point of handling. For a category where items are large, often arrive in multiple cartons, and pass through warehouse portals, vehicles, and home delivery environments, the ability to capture identity and movement data without manual scanning at each stage is a significant operational advantage.

In the context of DPP, RFID does two things that are difficult to replicate with other identification methods. First, it enables automated lifecycle event capture: every time a tagged item passes a reader – at a warehouse portal, a loading dock, a delivery confirmation point, a returns intake – the event is recorded without requiring a manual action from the handler. Each of those events becomes part of the product’s DPP record, building the lifecycle history that regulators and consumers will be able to access. Second, RFID supports component-level tagging in a way that barcode scanning does not practically allow at the speeds and volumes that bulk retail operates at. A sofa that arrives in three cartons can have each carton, and potentially each major sub-assembly within it, individually tagged; so the DPP record is genuinely granular rather than a top-level summary.

Coriel’s corielTHINGS platform is designed precisely for this use case: managing product identity and traceability data in a structured, standards-led way that aligns with GS1 identifiers and EPCIS 2.0 event data, the two technical foundations that underpin compliant DPP implementation. For retailers beginning their DPP readiness programme, it provides a practical starting point that avoids the need to build bespoke infrastructure from scratch.

Practical readiness plan: data model, suppliers, tagging strategy, and systems alignment

DPP readiness for bulk retailers is best approached as a four-strand programme running in parallel rather than a linear sequence of steps. The strands are interconnected, and progress on one creates the conditions for progress on the others, but each needs its own owner and its own timeline.

The first strand is the data model: defining precisely what information the DPP must contain for each product category, mapped against the ESPR requirements that apply to that category and the timeline by which they apply. This is not a technology task, it is a cross-functional exercise involving product, compliance, procurement, and IT. The output is a clear specification of what data is needed, what currently exists, and where the gaps are.

The second strand is supplier engagement. The data that populates a DPP does not originate in the retailer’s systems, it originates with the manufacturers and component suppliers who produce the goods. Retailers who have not yet had structured conversations with their supply base about data provision, format standards, and traceability capabilities need to begin those conversations now. Suppliers who are unprepared will become a bottleneck, and in categories with long lead times and complex sourcing, the timeline to resolve supplier data gaps is measured in months, not weeks.

The third strand is the tagging strategy: deciding which products and components will be RFID-tagged, which will carry 2D codes, and at what point in the supply chain the identifier is applied. For most bulk retailers, the pragmatic answer is to start RFID tagging at the point of inbound goods receipt for high-value SKUs, and work back towards the supplier over time as the programme matures. The fourth strand is systems alignment: ensuring that the WMS, OMS, TMS, and any ERP systems that touch the product record are capable of passing DPP-relevant event data into the central repository in a format that meets GS1 and EPCIS 2.0 standards.

How DPP can become a commercial advantage

The retailers who will extract the most value from Digital Product Passport infrastructure are those who build it with commercial opportunity in mind from the outset, not just compliance. The DPP is, at its core, a structured data asset linked to every product unit the business sells. Used intelligently, it becomes the foundation for several commercial capabilities that do not currently exist in most bulk retail operations.

Consumer trust is the most immediate. A customer who can scan a QR code on a sofa in a showroom and access verified information about the timber’s origin, the fabric’s composition, and the product’s repairability has a fundamentally different relationship with that product than one who receives a paper care label and a warranty card. In a market where sustainability claims are increasingly scrutinised, verifiable product data is a more powerful signal than marketing copy.

The DPP also creates the data infrastructure for resale and refurbishment programmes, which are growing in commercial relevance across the furniture sector. A second-hand sofa with a verifiable provenance record – original purchase date, service history, material composition, commands a higher price and is easier to sell than one without. Retailers who operate or partner with recommerce platforms will find that DPP data becomes a direct input to valuation and consumer confidence in the secondary market. Returns processing benefits similarly: a returns intake point with RFID readers can identify an item instantly, retrieve its full history, and route it to the appropriate destination – refurbishment, resale, or recycling – without manual assessment.

Executive checklist: what to ask your teams and vendors this quarter

Before you read on, grab the checklist.

We have distilled the ten questions every bulk retail leader should be asking this quarter into a free, downloadable one-page PDF. Whether you are sharing it with your operations team, taking it into a supplier conversation, or using it to frame an internal review, it gives you a practical starting point for your DPP readiness assessment without wading through the full detail. Download the Digital Product Passport Readiness Checklist here.

Use the following questions to assess your organisation’s current DPP readiness and identify where to focus first:

• Do we have a clear view of which product categories will be in scope for ESPR-mandated DPP, and by when?
• Can we identify every product unit individually – not just by model or SKU, but by serial item identity, across our full range?
• Do we know which materials and components are in each of our products, at a level of detail that would satisfy a DPP data requirement?
• Have we had structured conversations with our key suppliers about their ability to provide verified material and provenance data in a structured format?
• Do our WMS, OMS, and TMS systems currently capture lifecycle events: receipt, despatch, delivery, return in a way that could feed a DPP record?
• Is our current RFID or barcode tagging strategy operating at the item level, or are we still tracking at carton or pallet level for most of our range?
• Have we identified a standards-aligned data repository, one that supports GS1 identifiers and EPCIS 2.0, as the destination for our DPP event data?
• Do we have a cross-functional owner for DPP readiness, or is it currently sitting unowned between compliance, IT, and operations?
• Have we assessed whether our current approach to returns and end-of-life creates any data that would contribute to a DPP lifecycle record?
• Are we aware of the commercial opportunities – resale, refurbishment, consumer trust, that DPP infrastructure could enable, beyond regulatory compliance?

Download the pdf checklist.

The organisations that will be best placed when DPP mandates arrive in bulk retail are not necessarily the largest or the most technically sophisticated, they are the ones that start asking these questions now and begin building the data foundations while there is still time to do it properly. RFID is the most reliable way to generate the item-level event data that DPP requires at the volumes and operational speeds that bulk retail demands. The technology is proven, the standards are established, and the commercial case is compelling. The only question is when, not whether.

Bulk retail (furniture, outdoor structures, large appliances, and any category where a consumer purchase arrives in multiple parts), is reaching an inflection point where those same disciplines are no longer a nice-to-have. High-value items, long lead times, complex multi-drop delivery routes, and customers who have taken days off work to receive an order they have been waiting weeks for: the cost of getting it wrong is significant. A missed delivery means rescheduling. A damaged item means a claim. An incomplete order – a sofa delivered without its legs, a shed delivered without its fixings – means a failed installation, an unhappy customer, and an avoidable return. The operational and reputational cost of these failures accumulates quietly but relentlessly.

This post, the third in our series on RFID in bulk retail, looks at what furniture and large-format retailers can borrow from pharmaceutical supply chain practice, and how RFID, combined with structured proof of delivery, can bring the same level of traceability and accountability to a sector that has historically operated without it.

What pharmaceutical supply chains do differently

What RFID captures, and why it matters

RFID-based proof of delivery goes considerably further than a barcode scan or a driver’s handheld confirmation. At each stage of the delivery journey, the system can capture the serial identity of the item or component, the precise time of the event, the location of the scan, and the identity of the handler. Combined, those four data points create an auditable chain of custody that mirrors the pharmaceutical model in everything except the regulatory mandate.

At the warehouse, RFID portals verify the full manifest against the pick list before a vehicle is released. Every item crossing the portal is read; anything missing or unexpected triggers an exception before departure. On the vehicle, load integrity can be confirmed at intermediate stops. At the customer’s home, a final scan confirms that everything on the manifest was present and handed over. Each scan creates a timestamped record. If a customer subsequently claims an item was missing or damaged, the retailer has a complete event log from pick to doorstep.

The value of this data is not limited to dispute resolution. Over time, it reveals patterns that operations teams can act on: which routes have the highest rate of exceptions, which products are most frequently associated with damage claims, which handlers are consistently accurate, and which are not. The chain of custody is also a source of operational intelligence, and retailers who treat it as such quickly find that the same system which reduces claims also reduces the root causes of those claims.

Reducing chargebacks and disputes with verifiable evidence

Delivery disputes are expensive in bulk retail in ways that go beyond the direct cost of the chargeback. There is the time spent by customer service teams investigating claims, the logistics cost of re-delivery or collection, the write-off on damaged or incomplete items, and the downstream impact on customer satisfaction scores and repeat purchase rates. Research across the wider retail sector consistently points to delivery experience as one of the most influential factors in whether a customer returns, and in bulky categories, where the purchase is considered and the delivery is an event in itself, a failed handover can end the relationship entirely.

When every delivery is backed by a complete digital record of what was loaded, when it left, where it was at each scan point, and what was confirmed at the door, the nature of disputes changes. Fraudulent or mistaken claims, where a customer genuinely cannot recall what was delivered, or in rarer cases makes a false claim, can be resolved quickly and with confidence. Legitimate claims, where damage or shortage is genuine, are equally straightforward to identify and act on. The system removes ambiguity from both sides of the conversation, which benefits the retailer operationally and the customer experientially.

Integrating POD data with TMS, WMS, and customer communications

The chain-of-custody data captured by RFID is most powerful when it flows into the systems that the business already relies on. A warehouse management system that knows every item was verified at dispatch can automate customer notifications. A transport management system that has real-time scan data from the vehicle can provide accurate delivery windows rather than the vague half-day slots that still frustrate customers across the industry. A customer service platform that can pull the full delivery event log instantly removes the need for an agent to chase a driver or a depot for information that should already be in the system.

This integration is where the pharmaceutical model is most instructive, because pharma has spent two decades building data architectures in which the product record travels with the product. The item identity created at manufacture is the same identity that is verified at every subsequent handover. There is no reconciliation problem, no data translation overhead, no moment where the chain breaks because one system does not talk to another. For bulk retailers building or upgrading their RFID infrastructure, starting with this principle – one identity, consistent across every system from pick to delivery confirmation, avoids the fragmentation that makes proof-of-delivery data difficult to use in practice.

Preventing the classic bulk delivery failures

It is worth being specific about the failure modes that RFID-based chain of custody addresses, because they are consistent across the sector and the cost of each one is higher than it might appear on first inspection. The wrong item being loaded happens when warehouse processes rely on human verification alone, a visual check or a manual count that confirms quantity but not identity. An RFID portal at the loading dock reads every tag automatically and flags immediately if an item does not match the manifest, regardless of how similar it looks to the correct one.

Missing components are perhaps the most damaging failure in the context of bulky items, because they render an otherwise complete delivery entirely unusable. A wardrobe without its hanging rail, a garden structure without its anchor bolts: the customer cannot use the product, and the retailer faces a secondary delivery to complete an order that should have been right the first time. Component-level tagging  – where every sub-assembly in a kit is individually identified rather than just the outer carton, allows the system to verify completeness at pick and again at load, before the gap ever reaches the customer’s door.

Damage disputes arise most commonly when there is no evidence of condition at the time of delivery. Photographic capture at handover, timestamped and linked to the delivery record, addresses this directly, and when combined with RFID scan data that confirms the item was the correct one and arrived within the expected timeframe, it creates a record that is difficult to dispute on either side. The driver completes the delivery with confidence; the customer receives a clear digital record of what was delivered and when; and the retailer has an audit trail that removes the guesswork from any subsequent claim.

KPIs to track, and where to expect movement first

Businesses implementing RFID-backed proof of delivery should expect to see measurable movement in a relatively small number of metrics, and it is worth being clear about which ones matter most in the short term. Claims rate – the proportion of completed deliveries that generate a subsequent dispute or return, is the most direct measure of chain-of-custody effectiveness and typically shows movement within the first few months of deployment on high-value routes. Redelivery cost, which captures the combined logistics and handling expense of a second attempt, is closely related and often the larger number in pure financial terms.

First-time delivery success rate – the proportion of orders completed correctly on the first attempt, without a subsequent call, claim, or revisit, is the metric that most directly reflects the cumulative benefit of the system. It incorporates loading accuracy, route execution, and handover quality, and it is the number that connects most naturally to customer satisfaction outcomes. Retailers who begin tracking it before implementation, and continue through the rollout period, consistently find it the most useful indicator of whether the system is working as intended.

Where to start: a practical rollout approach

The pharmaceutical industry did not build its traceability infrastructure overnight, and bulk retailers should not expect to either. The most effective starting point is a focused deployment on high-value SKUs and multi-drop routes, where the cost of failure is highest and the ROI from improvement is most visible. A sofa at £1,500 that generates a delivery dispute costs the business considerably more than the original margin; starting the rollout with the products where that exposure is greatest concentrates the early benefit and makes the business case for expansion straightforward to make.

From there, the extension to multi-component products – kits, flat-packs, anything shipped in more than one carton, is a natural second step, because it is precisely here that the gap between current practice and what RFID enables is widest. Most retailers can tell you how many orders were delivered. Very few can tell you, with confidence, how many were delivered complete. Closing that gap is the core value proposition, and it is one that pharma has demonstrated can be delivered at scale, without compromising speed or adding meaningful cost to the operation.

The pharmaceutical supply chain did not become the model it is today because regulators demanded it, or not only for that reason. It became the model because the people running it recognised that accountability and efficiency are not in tension; they are complementary. A system that knows exactly where everything is, and can prove it, does not just reduce disputes. It reduces the operational conditions that cause disputes in the first place. That is the lesson bulk retail is now in a position to apply, and the technology to do it is already proven.

For retailers looking to improve delivery accuracy, reduce claims, and introduce greater control across fulfilment, Coriel Solutions works as a complete system integrator, applying proven approaches from regulated supply chains to bulk retail environments, from consultancy through to delivery.

Where Operational Costs Build Up in Bulk Retail

Labour is spent searching for items that should be easy to locate. Orders are checked and rechecked before dispatch. Deliveries fail because products are incomplete or incorrect. Customer service teams handle avoidable queries, claims, and complaints.

Individually, these issues may appear manageable. Collectively, they create a cost base that is difficult to control and even harder to scale.

This is where RFID delivers measurable value. Not by reducing cost in the abstract, but by targeting the largest and most persistent sources of operational waste.

The Cost Problem in Bulk Retail Operations

Furniture and large-format retail present a unique operational challenge. Products are often:

• high value
• physically large
• packaged (flatpack) boxes all look the same, so are difficult to differentiate
• made up of multiple components
• handled across multiple locations and partners

This complexity introduces cost at every stage:

• labour-intensive receiving and dispatch processes
• errors in picking, packing, and shipping
• claims and chargebacks from incorrect or incomplete deliveries
• rework and redelivery costs
• customer service overhead driven by uncertainty and delays

A significant proportion of this cost stems from one root cause: limited visibility.

Without accurate, real-time insight into where items are and how they are moving, teams compensate with manual checks, duplicated effort, and conservative processes that add time and cost.

Saving 1: Faster Receiving and Dispatch Verification

Inbound and outbound processes are often more manual than they appear.

At goods-in, teams spend time checking deliveries against expected shipments. At dispatch, orders are verified item by item to avoid costly mistakes. Where products are multi-box or high value, this verification process becomes even more time-consuming.

RFID allows items to be read in bulk and verified automatically against expected orders. This reduces the need for manual scanning and checking, while improving accuracy.

In practice, this can:

• reduce inbound booking and verification time significantly
• improve confidence in dispatch accuracy
• reduce disputes with suppliers and logistics partners
• minimise credits and claims linked to incorrect shipments

The result is not only faster throughput, but a reduction in the hidden cost of errors and disputes.

Saving 2: Cycle Counts Without Shutdowns

Inventory checks are essential, but they are also expensive.

Traditional cycle counts often require:

• dedicated labour
• partial shutdown of areas
• a temporary stop on dispatches, even sales
• reliance on manual scanning or counting

Even then, accuracy can remain inconsistent.

With RFID, inventory can be counted quickly and frequently without disrupting operations. Items can be scanned in bulk, allowing teams to complete counts in hours rather than days.

This delivers two forms of savings:

• reduced labour associated with counting
• improved inventory accuracy, which reduces downstream errors

More frequent, reliable counts also reduce the need for reactive investigations into missing or misplaced stock.

Saving 3: Fewer Mis-Picks and Mis-Shipments

Mis-picks and mis-shipments are among the most expensive operational failures in bulk retail.

A single error can trigger:

• redelivery costs
• replacement stock requirements
• reverse logistics and handling
• customer dissatisfaction and potential churn
• damage to brand reputation.

These errors are often the result of:

• unclear item location
• complex, multi-item orders
• manual picking processes

RFID introduces item-level validation during picking and dispatch. Teams can confirm that the correct items have been selected and loaded before they leave the site.

In one bulk retail operation, improving item tracking and dispatch validation significantly increased delivery accuracy, reducing the volume of failed or incomplete deliveries and the associated cost of rework and redelivery.

Reducing these errors has a direct and immediate impact on cost, particularly in environments where delivery is resource-intensive.

Saving 4: Proof of Dispatch and Delivery

Disputes over whether an item was shipped, delivered, or received correctly are a persistent source of cost.

Without reliable proof, retailers may:

• issue credits unnecessarily
• absorb the cost of replacement goods
• spend time investigating claims

RFID supports the creation of a verifiable record of events at item level, including:

• when an item was picked
• when it was loaded
• where and when it was delivered
• which order it was associated with

This creates a clear audit trail that can be used to:

• resolve disputes quickly
• reduce fraudulent or incorrect claims
• improve accountability across partners
• prove delivery accurately, which may bring benefits such as  quicker payment of invoices.

Over time, this level of control reduces both direct financial loss and the administrative cost of managing disputes.

Building the Business Case: Quantifying Savings by Process Step

The strongest RFID business cases are built from operational reality, not broad assumptions.

Rather than applying generic ROI models, retailers should focus on quantifying savings at each step of their process. This typically includes:

• Receiving: time spent booking in goods and resolving discrepancies
• Picking and dispatch: labour required, error rates, and verification time
• Delivery: cost of failed or incomplete deliveries
• Returns and claims: handling costs, credits, and write-offs
• Customer service: time spent managing order queries and complaints

By applying current volumes and cost rates to these areas, it becomes possible to model the financial impact of improved accuracy, reduced handling time, and fewer errors.

In many cases, the largest opportunities are found in the most routine activities—where small inefficiencies are repeated at scale.

Making Savings Stick: Governance and Data Discipline

Technology alone does not deliver sustained cost reduction. The benefits depend on how consistently processes are followed and how well data is managed.

To ensure savings are maintained over time, retailers need:

• clear data standards for item identification and tracking
• defined processes for handling exceptions and anomalies
• alignment across suppliers, warehouses, and delivery partners
• ongoing monitoring of performance metrics such as accuracy and error rates

RFID provides the visibility required to enforce these standards, but governance ensures that the visibility is used effectively.

Without this discipline, inefficiencies can re-emerge even with improved technology in place.

From Cost Centre to Control Tower

Bulk retail operations are often managed as cost centres, with effort focused on containing expenditure rather than understanding and controlling it.

Improved visibility changes this dynamic.

When retailers can see how stock moves, where errors occur, and how processes perform, operations become more predictable and more manageable. Decisions can be made based on accurate data rather than assumptions or manual checks.

This is what turns operations into a control tower: a function that not only executes, but actively manages performance, cost, and risk.

RFID supports this shift by providing a consistent, real-time view of items across the supply chain, enabling retailers to reduce waste, improve accuracy, and operate with greater confidence.

For retailers looking to reduce operational waste and build a clear, evidence-based business case for RFID, Coriel Solutions works as a complete system integrator, from consultancy through to delivery, helping organisations identify where savings exist and implement solutions that deliver measurable results.

By the time an order is cancelled, the revenue has already been counted and then lost.

Across furniture and home retail, the same patterns emerge. Items appear available in the system, but cannot be located. Orders are confirmed but later cancelled. Deliveries are missed, incomplete, or incorrect. In many operations, inventory accuracy sits far below the level it needs to be, often in the 65-75% range, making reliable fulfilment difficult at scale and leading directly to missed or failed orders.

This is not a demand problem. It is an availability problem.

For bulky, high-value items, the impact is significant. A single failed order can lead to lost revenue, additional delivery costs, and a poor customer experience that is difficult to recover from. Improving availability, making stock visible, locatable, and fulfilment-ready, is therefore one of the most direct ways to improve commercial performance.

RFID and real-time item visibility provide a practical route to achieving this, not as a long-term transformation programme, but as a focused way to recover revenue already within the business.

Why Availability Is the Biggest Revenue Driver in Bulk Retail

In bulk retail, “in stock” does not always mean “sellable”.

True availability means an item is:

• accurately recorded in the system
• physically locatable by teams
• ready to be picked, allocated, and delivered

When any one of these breaks down, revenue is lost. A product may exist somewhere in the network, but if it cannot be found quickly or allocated with confidence, it cannot be sold or fulfilled reliably.

This is why availability, rather than demand generation, often becomes the limiting factor in growth. Retailers are not always short of customers; they are short of certainty.

Why RFID Works So Well in Bulk Retail Environments

RFID has often been associated with high-volume apparel environments, but bulk retail presents a particularly strong use case.

Large-format categories such as furniture and homeware combine:

• a higher individual item value
• complex, multi-box products
• costly delivery and returns processes
• fragmented visibility across suppliers, warehouses, and delivery partners

In these environments, the cost of getting fulfilment wrong is high, and the value of getting it right is immediate. Improving visibility does not just streamline operations; it protects margin and supports more reliable revenue capture.

The Three Revenue Levers

Real-time item visibility enables retailers to act on three practical levers that directly affect revenue performance.

Lever 1: Recovering Hidden Stock Through Better Availability

Many retailers already hold the stock required to fulfil customer demand, but a proportion of that stock is effectively unavailable due to poor visibility.

Items may be:

• misplaced within warehouses or store backrooms
• incorrectly recorded in systems
• difficult to locate within large-format storage environments

Without accurate, real-time visibility, teams spend time searching and miss opportunities to convert demand.

Introducing item-level tracking significantly improves stock accuracy and location confidence. In practice, this can move inventory accuracy from around 65% to over 90%, bringing a large proportion of previously “lost” stock back into circulation.

The commercial benefit is clear: more of the existing demand can be fulfilled successfully.

Lever 2: Reducing Cancellations by Protecting Customer Orders

Order cancellations are one of the most direct forms of revenue loss in bulk retail. By the time an order is cancelled, the revenue has already been counted and then lost.

Cancellations typically arise from:

• inaccurate stock data
• items being double-allocated
• an inability to locate products during picking and dispatch
• lack of visibility across multi-item orders

In one UK furniture retail operation, the lack of track-and-trace across the supply chain led to frequent dispatch errors, particularly with multi-box items. Orders were often incomplete or incorrect, contributing to poor delivery performance.

By introducing RFID-based tracking and improving control over the dispatch process, the retailer increased OTIF (on-time, in-full delivery) from 70% to 95%, significantly reducing failed deliveries and associated revenue loss.

This level of control allows retailers to move from reactive problem-solving to more reliable order fulfilment, reducing the risk of over-promising and under-delivering.

Lever 3: Enabling Faster, More Flexible Fulfilment

Customer expectations around delivery continue to increase, even for large and complex items. Retailers are under pressure to offer tighter delivery windows, make better use of distributed stock, and respond quickly to changing demand.

However, these capabilities depend on having confidence in stock location and status across the network.

With accurate, real-time visibility, retailers can:

• make more reliable fulfilment decisions across stores and distribution centres
• reduce time spent locating items during picking
• improve dispatch accuracy and speed

Operational improvements in dispatch processes have been shown to reduce handling times by 30-50% in bulk environments, while also supporting higher throughput and more efficient labour use.

This creates the conditions for faster, more flexible fulfilment without increasing inventory levels, enabling retailers to respond to demand more effectively.

What RFID Looks Like in a Bulk Retail Operation

In practice, these improvements are typically achieved through focused deployments rather than large-scale transformation from the outset.

In the case referenced above, a growing UK furniture retailer was experiencing inefficiencies driven by multi-box products, sequential picking processes, and limited visibility across its operations. Orders often required multiple items to be located and dispatched together, increasing complexity and the likelihood of error.

By introducing RFID tagging at source, integrating with existing warehouse and order management systems, and enabling item-level tracking throughout the picking and dispatch process, the business was able to:

• improve inventory accuracy
• increase dispatch reliability
• reduce time spent locating items
• strengthen overall delivery performance

These changes were achieved within a defined operational scope, providing a clear foundation for further rollout.

Turning Inventory Visibility into Revenue in Bulk Retail

For bulk retailers, the opportunity is not simply to improve operational efficiency. It is to convert more of the existing demand into completed, profitable sales.

When stock can be located quickly, allocated with confidence, and delivered accurately, the business becomes more reliable at every stage of the customer journey. Fewer orders are cancelled, fewer deliveries fail, and more sales reach completion.

RFID supports this by providing a consistent, item-level view of inventory across the supply chain, from inbound receipt through to final delivery and returns. When implemented as part of an integrated approach that combines systems, processes, and data, it enables retailers to move from uncertainty to control.

Final Thought

Bulk retail is inherently complex, but much of the revenue leakage within the sector is avoidable. It stems from visibility gaps rather than demand gaps.

Improving that visibility does not require a complete reinvention of operations. It requires a more reliable way of understanding where products are, how they move, and how they are fulfilled.

Retailers that address this effectively place themselves in a stronger position to protect margin, improve customer experience, and scale with confidence.

If you are assessing how RFID could support your operations, Coriel Solutions works with retailers as a complete system integrator, from initial consultancy through to delivery, helping organisations design and implement RFID solutions that deliver measurable impact in defined operational areas.

May 27-28, 2026
Sofitel Victoria, Warsaw, Poland

 The Zebra RFID Forum is coming up this May and Coriel Solutions is delighted to be attending as a Silver Sponsor, joining industry leaders, technology partners, and end users to explore how RFID is being implemented at scale across real operational environments.

The RFID Forum brings together organisations at different stages of adoption, from pilot projects through to enterprise-wide deployments, to share practical insight, lessons learned and best practice across retail, logistics, manufacturing and asset management.

Coriel Solutions supports organisations with end-to-end RFID delivery, combining RFID software, hardware, system design, integration and standards-based data frameworks to help businesses move from roadmap to live deployment.

The Zebra RFID Forum agenda includes keynote sessions, customer success stories, sponsor presentations and industry round-table discussions.

A practical focus on RFID implementation

The Forum brings together existing RFID users and organisations exploring adoption across sectors, including retail, manufacturing, transport and healthcare. Through keynote sessions, panel discussions and customer success stories, attendees gain practical insight into how RFID is being applied to improve visibility, responsiveness and operational decision-making.

During the event, our team will be focusing on practical RFID implementation, including how organisations can:

• Design scalable RFID architectures
• Integrate RFID data into existing business systems
• Align RFID programmes with GS1 standards and EPCIS
• Build foundations for traceability and Digital Product Passport initiatives

There will be an emphasis on real-world deployment, as informed by hands-on project experience across multiple sectors.

Why attend the Zebra RFID Forum?

The event provides an opportunity to hear from organisations already deploying RFID, learn from real-world success stories and discuss implementation challenges with peers and technology specialists.

The Zebra RFID Forum will take place in Warsaw, Poland, bringing together global RFID specialists and end users.

To register your place for the End User Forum follow this link.

Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) make perfect sense for both the vendor and the end-customer. For the vendor, they can ensure parts are with their customers instantly, easily hold customer-specific SKUs and significantly reduce the amount of physical space they need for storing stock. For the customer, they get instant access to parts as they need them and typically only pay for them once they have been consumed. However, the complexities around managing a remote stock location, accurately managing inventory levels, and ensuring the customer is invoiced reliably often mean that the significant benefits to be derived are overlooked.

The Coriel Solutions provides the reliable item identification required for you to run a remote stock location on a customer site, with the same level of confidence as your own inventory locations.

Vendor-managed inventory provides you with significant benefits as listed below. From a reduction in transport costs and consequent emission reduction, better cash-flow management and you can virtually eliminate the need for stock taking exercises. Sounds great!

Significantly lowering central inventory requirements

A huge benefit of providing VMI services to your customers is the significant cost savings that can be realised through the utilisation of their on-site space rather than a large central inventory warehouse. In line with a reduction in space requirements, you will additionally see a reduction in the need for warehouse personnel and equipment – leading to lowered insurance and utility costs and less chance of any accidents across your sites.

Creating long-term partnerships with your customers

The benefits of VMI to the end customer are invaluable, as they essentially have stockholding to hand 24/7 but without the need to manage the stock or hold the value on their books. Their ability to manage their operations based on this soon becomes critical, which puts suppliers who offer VMI in a great position to create long-term contractual relationships that benefit both parties – often over contract periods that span several years.

A Practical Roadmap to Implementing Digital Product Passports

As Digital Product Passports move closer to mandatory adoption across multiple sectors, many organisations are shifting from understanding the regulation to implementing it in practice.

Under the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), Digital Product Passports will become a core requirement for selected product categories, starting with batteries in 2027 and expanding to others over time. This poses a significant operational and data challenge for manufacturers, retailers, and supply chain operators.

In our 2026 Guide to Digital Product Passports, we explored what digital product passports are, which sectors are affected, and the standards shaping compliance. In this follow-on article, we focus on how organisations can approach implementation in a structured, practical way.

Why a Roadmap Matters

Digital Product Passports are not a single technology deployment.

They require coordination across product data, identification, IT systems, labelling, operations, and external partners. Without a clear roadmap, initiatives can become fragmented, overly complex, or difficult to scale.

A phased implementation roadmap helps organisations:

• Manage complexity and reduce delivery risk
• Align internal teams around a shared approach
• Pilot solutions before committing to full rollout
• Build a future-proof foundation for ESPR compliance

Phase 1: Scope, Regulation, and Prioritisation

The first step is understanding where Digital Product Passports apply today and where they are likely to apply next.

This includes:

• Identifying which product categories fall under ESPR timelines
• Understanding market exposure, particularly EU requirements
• Prioritising products based on volume, complexity, or regulatory risk

At this stage, organisations should focus on defining a manageable starting point. The goal is to define a manageable starting point.

Phase 2: Defining Product Data and Ownership

Digital Product Passports are only as good as the data behind them.

Before selecting technology, organisations need to clarify:

• What product data is required for compliance and transparency
• Where that data currently resides
• Who owns, maintains, and validates each data element

This phase often reveals gaps or inconsistencies that must be addressed early to avoid issues later in the programme.

Phase 3: Standards-Based Data Modelling

To support scale and interoperability, Digital Product Passport data should be built on open standards.

This typically involves:

• Using GS1 identifiers to uniquely identify products
• Structuring lifecycle events using EPCIS 2.0
• Defining how data is captured, stored, and shared across systems

A standards-based data model ensures compatibility across partners and avoids reliance on proprietary or siloed solutions.

Phase 4: Product Identification and Data Capture

Once the data model is defined, organisations can focus on linking physical products to digital records.

This may include:

• Printing and applying 2D codes
• Encoding RFID tags where automation or non-line-of-sight reading is required
• Deploying readers or portals to capture product events reliably

The emphasis should be on repeatability, accuracy, and operational fit.

Phase 5: Pilot and Validation

Pilots are a critical step in any Digital Product Passport Programme.

They allow organisations to:

• Test data capture in real operational conditions
• Validate EPCIS events and data flows
• Identify process or system issues early
• Refine workflows before scaling

A successful pilot creates a proven reference model for wider rollout.

Phase 6: Scale, Integrate, and Optimise

Following a successful pilot, Digital Product Passport capabilities can be extended across:

• Additional product ranges
• Multiple sites or regions
• Suppliers and logistics partners

At this stage, integration with enterprise systems becomes increasingly important to ensure efficiency, data consistency, and long-term sustainability.

How Coriel Solutions Supports Digital Product Passport Programmes

Coriel Solutions designs and delivers end-to-end traceability solutions so that organisations can move from roadmap to reality.

This includes integrating:

• RFID and 2D identification technologies

• Fixed and mobile readers

• Automated portals

• Cloud platforms built on GS1 standards and EPCIS 2.0

To support digital product passport programmes in practice, Coriel Solutions also offers corielTHINGS – a cloud-based platform designed to manage product identity and traceability data in a structured, standards-led way.

corielTHINGS supports GS1 identifiers and EPCIS 2.0 event data, helping organisations test data models, validate event flows, and maintain continuity as digital product passport capabilities scale.

By connecting physical products with trusted digital data, Coriel Solutions supports phased implementation and long-term ESPR compliance. Solutions are designed for real operational environments and can evolve as regulatory requirements and business needs change.

Seeing the Full Picture

This roadmap outlines the practical steps to implement Digital Product Passports.

For a broader overview, including what digital product passports are, which sectors are affected, and how ESPR is shaping requirements, read our companion article:

The 2026 Guide to Digital Product Passports

Moving Forward

Digital Product Passports represent a significant shift in how product data is managed and shared. Organisations that take a structured, phased approach will be best placed to respond as requirements come into force.

Whether you are in the early scoping stages or planning a pilot, Coriel Solutions can help you shape a roadmap that aligns with your products, systems, and regulatory obligations.

The 2026 Guide to Digital Product Passports

The requirement for Digital Product Passports is moving quickly from future policy to practical reality.

Driven by new EU sustainability legislation, Digital Product Passports will soon be mandatory for certain product categories, with many more expected to follow. From 2026 onward, businesses will need to provide structured, reliable product data to support traceability, sustainability reporting, and regulatory compliance across the supply chain.

For many organisations, this raises important questions. What exactly is a Digital Product Passport? Which sectors are affected first? What data is required, and how should it be captured, managed, and shared?

In this guide, we explain what Digital Product Passports are, how they work in practice, and how businesses can begin preparing now. Drawing on real-world traceability projects, we also outline how standards-based technologies such as GS1*, EPCIS 2.0**, RFID, and 2D codes come together to create scalable, compliant digital product passport solutions.

What Is a Digital Product Passport?

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured digital record linked to a physical product.

It stores and shares information such as:

• Product identity and origin
• Materials and components
• Environmental and sustainability data
• Repair, reuse, and recycling information
• Compliance and regulatory status

The data is accessed via a machine-readable identifier, such as a 2D barcode or RFID label. That identifier links the physical item to its digital record in the cloud.

Importantly, the Passport is not a single document. It is a live dataset, updated as the product moves through manufacturing, distribution, use, and end of life.

Which Sectors Are First and What Data Is Required?

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) framework applies across many product categories, meaning that products, systems, and data should meet the requirements set out in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. Implementation will be phased:

Early focus sectors include:

• Batteries (mandatory from February 2027)
• Electronics and electrical equipment
• Textiles
• Construction products
• Packaging and consumer goods

The exact data requirements will vary by sector. However, most Digital Product Passports will need to support:

• Unique product identification
• Traceability across the supply chain
• Sustainability and environmental metrics
• Repairability and lifecycle information

This means organisations must move beyond static databases. They need event-driven, interoperable data models.

Linking Products to Data

A Digital Product Passport is only useful if it can be accessed.

Most implementations will use:

• 2D barcodes (such as Data Matrix or QR codes)
• RFID tags, where automation and non-line-of-sight reading are required

The identifier printed or encoded on the product links directly to its digital record.

The key challenge is not printing the code. It is ensuring:

• Each identifier is unique
• The data behind it is accurate
• The link remains valid throughout the product lifecycle

This is where poor system design can quickly undermine compliance efforts.

Why Digital Product Passports Should Be Implemented in Phases

Digital Product Passports are not a single system change.

In practice, they span multiple functions across an organisation; from product design and manufacturing to labelling, IT, data governance, and compliance. For brands with complex product ranges or multiple suppliers, digital product passport programmes can quickly become large and interconnected.

Across the market, organisations working on early Digital Product Passport initiatives are finding that projects often involve:

• Product data that sits across multiple systems
• Different teams own different parts of the data
• Variations in materials, components, and country-of-origin requirements
• Legacy systems are not designed for item-level traceability
• The need to align internal teams and external partners

Supporting Digital Product Passport Readiness

To support organisations moving from understanding digital product passport requirements into practical planning, Coriel Solutions has developed corielTHINGS.

corielTHINGS is a cloud-based platform designed to manage product identity and traceability data in a structured, standards-led way. It supports GS1 identifiers and EPCIS 2.0 event data, providing a foundation for linking physical products to digital records.

For organisations at an early stage, platforms like corielTHINGS can help translate emerging digital product passport requirements into something practical, scalable, and aligned with existing operations.

Planning for Digital Product Passport Implementation

Digital Product Passports are not a one-step change.

For most organisations, they represent a multi-year programme that spans product data, identification, systems integration, and supply-chain collaboration. Because of this, Digital Product Passport initiatives should be approached with a clear implementation roadmap rather than treated as a single compliance task.

While the detail will vary by sector and organisation, most digital product passport programmes follow a similar high-level pattern:

• Scoping and prioritisation
  Understanding which products, markets, and regulations apply first.
• Data definition
  Identifying what data is required, where it lives, and who owns it.
• Standards alignment
  Structuring data around recognised standards such as GS1 identifiers and EPCIS 2.0 
• Identification and capture
  Linking physical products to digital records using 2D codes, RFID, or a combination of both.
• Pilot and scale
  Testing with a limited product set before extending across products, sites, and partners.

Taking a phased approach helps organisations manage complexity, reduce operational risk, and build scalable, future-proof digital product passport capabilities.

To support organisations moving from regulation to delivery, we have set out a practical Digital Product Passport implementation roadmap that covers pilots, data models, and system integration in more detail.

Read the full Digital Product Passport Implementation Roadmap

Notes:

*GS1 – GS1 is a global, not-for-profit standards organisation that develops and maintains standards used to identify, capture, and share information about products, locations, and assets across supply chains; such as Barcodes (EAN/GTIN).

**EPCIS 2.0 – EPCIS 2.0 stands for Electronic Product Code Information Services (version 2.0). It’s a GS1 data standard used to capture and share traceability events about products as they move through the supply chain. EPCIS 2.0 turns product movements and status changes into trusted, shareable data, which is exactly what digital product passports need to work at scale.