RFID in 2006: A Story of Extremes

Although IDTechEx forecast that eventually retail will be the biggest market by far for RFID, consumer goods companies are yet to see sustainable paybacks. The real opportunity for them is with item level tagging. Retail mandates asked for their top suppliers to tag the pallets and cases of the highest volume products they sell. The highest volume products tend to be those which are lower value and lower margin and therefore it comes as no surprise that most consumer goods suppliers don’t get a payback. For RFID suppliers, item level tagging for retailers is a better business where high value products are tagged first, such as Marks & Spencer apparel, BGN books or Best Buy video games. However, it is vulnerable to rapid design change. Like anti-theft tags, there are three incompatible options here—Near Field UHF, Far Field UHF and HF.