The Case
Scarpe & Scarpe is a Turin-based retailer with over 50 years of heritage in the footwear, leather goods and clothing sectors. Founded by the Pettenuzzo family, the company has witnessed great changes in the industry and led the evolution of the Italian retail distribution system since the 1960s.
Scarpe & Scarpe’s brand success was built on broad merchandise variety, product quality and price competitiveness. Founded as a shoe retailer, the company has been able to expand its core business over the years to offer casual clothing and sportswear, along with luggage, leather goods and accessories.
Due to its wide product assortments, open displays and several high-risk, high-theft categories such as bags and accessories, the retailer decided to update its Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) portfolio to help improve merchandise tagging effectiveness. The main goal was to help boost loss prevention efforts and reduce shrink while simultaneously simplifying store operations.
Since Scarpe & Scarpe were operating in a highly competitive sector, the retailer also wanted to encourage more personalized in-store shopping by offering customers the fastest, simplest and most efficient shopping experience possible.
To solve these challenges, management decided to look for a solution capable of mitigating the risk of theft, while enhancing the shopping experience. Scarpe & Scarpe recognized the strategic importance of advanced loss prevention technologies for its business and decided to adopt the innovative InFuzion Magnetic anti-theft tag, the first in the new, innovative InFuzion EAS tagging series.
The benefits of InFuzion tags quickly became visible during the in-store trials. InFuzion’s unique one-piece design eliminated the need to store tags and pins separately, sped up tag removal time at the point of sale (POS) and helped improve managerial operations.
The integrated pin also helped reduce the previous issue of having to replace lost and damaged pins and ultimately eliminated the need for pin replacement orders. This innovative design proved to be less susceptible to shoplifters and made it almost impossible for the tag to be manipulated and removed without damaging merchandise.
The Infuzion tag scored high for its aesthetics. Its reduced size and lightness, together with the narrow, extremely smooth pin, allowed tag application on practically all types of merchandise, even on very light garments and fine fabrics.
During the in-store trials, the InFuzion antitheft tag has proven its ease of use. Store associates appreciate that the tags can be quickly applied and removed with only one hand, allowing them to spend less time on operational tasks and more time assisting customers.
“InFuzion’s characteristic design has standardized and improved the tag application process, as the tag itself can only be applied in a visible position, at the edge of the merchandise. We see this as a big advantage, especially during the removal process, as it increases the speed of merchandise detachment, reduces the search time for the tag on items and makes ‘missing the tag’ practically impossible.” – Mr. Fabio Guarino, Loss Prevention Manager at Scarpe & Scarpe
All this adds to an enhanced customer experience by reducing wait time at POS and eliminating alarms from non-removed tags.
Sensormatic Solutions performed usability testing to measure the performance differences in speed and efficiency to apply and remove one-piece versus two-piece tags on a variety of items in different sizes and fabrics. Unsurprisingly, the InFuzion Magnetic tag had the fastest application and removal time, delivering a 40% overall time savings.
Scarpe & Scarpe’s goal has always been to offer customers an extensive and complete assortment of footwear and leather goods to fully satisfy their customers’ needs. Thanks to the increased effectiveness of the loss prevention program supported by InFuzion anti-theft tags, the company continues on its path to become the number one footwear retailer for Italian consumers.
