What’s the Next Move

Still to be fully commercialized in the retail world, RFID—the electronic barcode—nevertheless remains at the forefront of a whole new technology base. Presently relying on a self-adhesive label laminate as a carrier, RFID is illustrating to retailers ways in which they can not only manage their purchasing, their inventory, and theft, but also how they can expand, almost infinitely, their customer knowledge base. With the power of such retailers as Wal-Mart in the U.S. and Tesco and Metro in Europe behind it, RFID and other track-and-trace systems are certainly here to stay.