Wal-Mart turns on radio tags

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RFID in consumer goods

>why a supplier would want to incur the cost of these chips?

Though most of the benefits of RFID tagging can be realised through the use of the current bar-codes ? some manufacturers are soon to release refrigerator/freezers incorporating RFID readers and other appliance makers have similar plans. Your land-line telephone or computer modem, in-fact, may soon incorporate such a reader.
This feature is being touted as a convenience to consumers ? allowing you to inventory the contents of your home via the internet so you can purchase the needed items before returning. Of course it also leaves open the opportunity for suppliers (such as those who supply their goods to Walmart) to interrogate your home to learn which products you possess so they may keep track of your buying habits.
It?s every supplier?s dream to be able to know what products you buy so they could entice you to buy THEIR product rather than their competitors?. As such; RFID inventory of your purchases at the check-out register (assuming you don?t pay via cash) can provide vendors a reasonable estimate of your household?s inventory.
Companies spend millions of dollars each year on collecting, analyzing and maintaining such data. I should know ? my employment (IT) is dependent upon that data.
RFID tags, as opposed to bar-codes, also permit vendors to interrogate remote RFID readers near the shelves in stores so they can track the actual real-time shelf inventory and customer selection of any of their tagged items. Taking a hypothetical case: Assuming
1) 30 customers enter a given Walmart within 2 minutes of each other,
2) each spends an hour shopping in that store,
3) there are 30 widgets on a given shelf and each shopper selects one each at the start of their shopping time.
Throughout the following hour each widget will pass through the check-out, have its bar-code tag read and the customer will pay and leave. Only upon most of the widgets passing through the check-out would Walmart learn of that shelf being depleted. [How many times have YOU been into a Walmart store only to find empty shelves of a certain item you specifically drove there to buy?]
The widget vendor wouldn?t learn that it needed to re-supply 30 more widgets until that data passed through
1) that particular store?s office,
2) Walmart?s headquarters in Bentonville Arkansas,
3) Walmart?s regional distribution hub and, assuming the hub?s own supply is depleted,
4) Walmart?s purchasing department and
5) an update sent to the vendor?s own sales department (and supply chain of command).
Through the use of RFID tags and Walmart?s plan to rent store space to vendors (instead of actually purchasing the items at wholesale prices and collecting the sales taxes) each vendor would know, minute by minute which items needed restocking at each store ? bypassing Walmart?s current purchasing and supply chain (saving time and money) and greatly speeding supply to meet demand.
Sure it?s convenient for the consumer and should lower costs to Walmart and its vendors (rightfully lowering prices to consumers) ? but what of your privacy? Could we eventually become so exposed that companies could determine what foods and vitamins we would be permitted to consume? Check-out the urinating in ?The Island?.

Posted by: lp115lp   Posted on: 06/21/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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