What Is the Real Status of Wall-mart RFID efforts?
published: cw 23, 2005 in Supply Chain Technology & RFIDARC Research discovered that public reporting on the status of Wal-Marts RFID efforts has been highly misleading. The impression conveyed to the public by many pundits is that all Wal-Mart SKUs bound for three of the retailer’s Texas distribution centers, from the top 100 suppliers, were RFID-tagged started January 1st. This is incorrect. In fact, there was a set of negotiations between Wal-Mart’s top 100 suppliers and the retail behemoth. In these negotiations,’Wal-Mart has shown more flexibility than many anticipated.
Wal-Mart mandated that, by January 2005, its top 100 suppliers had to apply passive RFID tags based on EPC-global standards to cases and pallets headed toward three specific distribution centers (DCs) in Texas. The impact of this will eventually be felt on virtually all manufacturers of consumer goods because Wal-Mart?s moves in RFID are being copied by other retailers.
The focus right now is on Wal-Mart, and the question people are asking is: What is the status of your efforts? The more interesting questions should be directed at Wal-Marts suppliers. Those questions are: How successful were you in your negotiations with Wal- Mart? What does it take to do well in those negotiations?
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