The first chef

Wal-Mart kills Smart Shelf It was a big announcement for the RFID industry. Wal-Mart was piloting an effort with Gillette to put RFID tags on a number of Gillette SKUs that Wal-Mart would stock on their shelves. The concept was to wirelessly have an inventory view of the Gillette products in Wal-Mart stores, and thereby managing store replenishment effortlessly. It was good for both Wal-Mart and Gillette in that Wal-Mart would maintain a great in-stock position, while Gillette would gain valuable data on the movement of their products. It was also a big announcement because no one had thus far proven that there was a healthy ROI on RFID tags (and hence the technology). Wal-Mart is announcing that instead of focusing on the movement of products from its stores, it will instead focus on its backend supply chain, urging suppliers to instead place RFID tags on shipping units, such as pallets, etc. A good place to put the focus in my opinion, as that's where there is the biggest bang for the buck. RFIDs aren't cheap enough to go down to the SKU level at this point. Someday though.