The Munich developers Alexander Schneider and Sebastian M\u00fcller are behind the start-up company Rapitag. Both have a heart for customers under time pressure. That’s why they have developed an intelligent anti-theft device that gives consumers a new shopping experience.<\/p>\n
Rapitag allows customers to pay for the selected product with their smartphone directly on the shelf. In a large German electronics chain in Munich, technology has already found its way into the headphone department. Anyone who wants to enjoy new headphones here can enjoy the innovative payment technology. The buyer simply downloads an app onto his smartphone. After registering and paying for the desired headphones, the customer holds the mobile phone to the product’s anti-theft device. This is then automatically unlocked, then remains in the store and the customer can leave the store with the goods.<\/p>\n
There is no need to queue up at the checkout.<\/p>\n
When you read the article and think of the self-checkout systems of a large Swedish furniture store and some supermarkets, you may not be completely wrong, but the novelty and innovation of Rapitag is the added value for the customer. What exactly does that mean? Queuing is queuing. It doesn’t really matter whether a customer is standing in line at the central checkout or at a self-checkout checkout. Both cost valuable time. This is exactly what Rapitag wants to help customers save. Even with mobile payment there is no real added value for the customer – although he can pay with his smartphone, he still has to queue and wait at the classic checkout line. This is where the Munich-based company’s new technology comes in: on the one hand, it wants to provide customers with a simple and convenient shopping experience and, on the other, it wants to offer retailers security with its intelligent anti-theft device.<\/p>\n
According to their own statement, the founders of the innovative technology are in negotiations with several large European and American fashion chains. They see the main advantage of their invention for retailers in the fact that traditional retailing with Rapitag can regain more influence in a market dominated by e-commerce. The introduction of the new technology can help to market one’s own business in the media as extremely innovative. Both retailers and customers under time pressure can benefit from the intelligent Rapitag anti-theft system.<\/p>\n
The innovative project was realized by the engineering and design office “industrialpartners”, among others. The German company, with offices in Frankfurt am Main, the Odenwald and the Chinese port city of Tianjin, accompanies its customers from the first brilliant idea to the development of the entire product. With the intelligent anti-theft device, the creative heads of “industrialpartners” were responsible for the concept development of the housing solution for the actual day, the subsequent mechanical development and the production of a 300 piece small series of these tags. For the production of the small series, the team, which received several awards for its design ideas, used the HP Multi Jet Fusion 4200 production system. This system makes it possible for the first time to produce components with an almost 100% density, which surpass laser-sintered parts in terms of strength and load-bearing capacity and are also virtually isotropic. The advantages of high speed and low material costs, combined with extremely short turnaround times, make this rapid prototyping process one of the most cost-effective additive manufacturing processes and can replace the conventional plastic injection moulding process for the production of small series on an industrial scale.<\/p>\n