Enabling RFID in retail

The past two years have witnessed an explosion of interest in radio-frequency identification and supporting technologies, due primarily to their rapidly expanding use in tracking grocery products through the supply chain. Currently such applications monitor store-keeping units (SKUs) rather than individual goods, as the relatively high cost of RFID deployment and the very low profit margin of supermarket products make item-level tagging impractical. Yet, economic and technical concerns aside, it is easy to envision a supermarket in which each item is tagged with an RFID label and all shopping carts feature RFID readers. The carts could potentially include onboard computers that recognize products placed inside and that display information and promotions retrieved wirelessly from the system back end. RFID-enabled smart phones, which are commercially available today and becoming increasingly popular, could carry out the same function. Item-level deployment of RFID technology would also allow for quick checkout aisles that scan all products at once and thus eliminate queues, which are consistently reported as one of the most negative aspects of supermarket shopping. A simple extension of this system would be to embed RFID devices in consumers´ loyalty or frequent-shopper cards to identify individuals. This could expedite system login and charge the shopping cost directly to the customer´s account at the point of sale-unless removed at the POS, item-level tags will inevitably follow the consumer home. This scenario undoubtedly raises numerous privacy concerns.