I have been following this development since the publication of an article in The Wall Street Journal on September 15, 2007 titled "Wal-Mart's Radio-Tracked Inventory Hits Static" by Gary Williams.

Most of the story is old news to bloggers who follow RFID, but what caught my attention was the fact that Wal-Mart declined to make an executive available for comment on its RFID efforts. This is a clear indication that Wal-Mart is indeed backing off its commitment to use RFID.

Since then two more factors have emerged that are significant. Some time in 2006 Wal-Mart quietly handed off the prime responsibility for the implementation of RFID from the IT team, that was spearheading the project, to the Operations group, with IT playing a supporting roll. This is an indication that hence forth the use of RFID is not an experiment, and needs to be cost justified. With a negative ROI, it’s hard to believe that Wal-Mart still intends to proceed with the vigor of the past.

The only positive remarks have come from Wal-Mart’s IT department. Since 2003 executives from IT have been the primary advocates for RFID and stand to loose big if RFID fails.

If Wal-Mart wanted to counteract the damage done by the Wall Street Journal, they would have an executive from Operations providing projections for the use of RFID.

One of two things is going to happen - either Wal-Mart's forcing its suppliers to adopt this technology will create demand and thus lower the price of RFIDs, or Wal-Mart will lose a lot of business. Because it's a retail giant, I would suspect that the suppliers who are big enough to absorb the cost will become stronger players in the market. The smaller suppliers are basically screwed.

RFID is not a new idea - I wrote about it four years ago. What's sad is that this issue is still a hot one years later. Even back then, Wal-Mart was pushing for suppliers to use the technology. Fine - then supply them with the readers! The tags themselves aren't the issue.

As prices for readers are coming down we should see more RFID initiatives. Here in Australia we have no Wal-Mart but Australia Post is the leader in adpoting this technology.

wall-mart is the big outlet..without them..hard to reach the customer

Changes are to be made when you think your company needs a better look or approach. That's for them to decide. But if your company slogan is Save the world it would be a mistake to start investing in polluting technology if you know what i mean.

Wal-Mart is retail commerce in the United States. There policies will become supplier staples if they impose their will enough.

Being such a big company and all they need to track things very easily and because of the complexity i think there is no other way to do so.

When will Wal-Mart open business in the European Union ?