Ladies Check Your Underwear for RFID Tags

Filed in archive Retail on March 12, 2006

Marks & Spencer, the large British retailer, is extending its item-level RFID tagging to more articles of clothing -- among them, ladies underwear.

The move is designed to help the retailer better stock its shelves, according to AIM Global's RFID Insights newsletter:

Multiple-sized items -- particularly women's intimate apparel that are available in many sizes, styles and colors -- are difficult for stores to keep adequately stocked. Use of RFID will help Marks & Spencer to better control its in-store and on-sale inventory. Although cash register data from bar codes with unique SKUs could be used to track sales, it would not necessarily reflect what is on the rack or help ensure that items were displayed in the proper location. Manually verifying actual items on each rack or display is both error-prone and labor-intensive.

Now in case you ladies out there are worried about taking a walk through your company's warehouse doors for fear the RFID readers will start reading what kind of underwear you have on, never fear. It looks like the tags will be five inches long and you'll probably be tearing them off before you put on this underwear.

Read more at The Retail Bulletin, which writes that the business case for using RFID in fashion and footwear retailing is strengthening.