Comments on: Given An RFID Inch, Will Sam’s Club Suppliers Try Taking A Mile? http://storefrontbacktalk.com/supply-chain/given-an-rfid-inch-will-sams-club-suppliers-try-taking-a-mile/ Techniques, Tools and Tirades about Retail Technology and E-Commerce Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:02:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Bill Bittner http://storefrontbacktalk.com/supply-chain/given-an-rfid-inch-will-sams-club-suppliers-try-taking-a-mile/comment-page-1/#comment-54739 Bill Bittner Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:07:11 +0000 http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/?p=2303#comment-54739 There are a lot of possible answers here, but the obvious one is that Sam's Club has realized a lot of benefit from pallet labeling and that having RFID tags on every pallet is worth it even if they have to apply them themselves. All their handling procedures can be developed with the premise that every pallet has a tag and they don't have to support multiple procedures. There are a lot of possible answers here, but the obvious one is that Sam’s Club has realized a lot of benefit from pallet labeling and that having RFID tags on every pallet is worth it even if they have to apply them themselves. All their handling procedures can be developed with the premise that every pallet has a tag and they don’t have to support multiple procedures.

]]> By: Bryan Larkin http://storefrontbacktalk.com/supply-chain/given-an-rfid-inch-will-sams-club-suppliers-try-taking-a-mile/comment-page-1/#comment-53518 Bryan Larkin Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:33:03 +0000 http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/?p=2303#comment-53518 If they are dropping the cost that much is Sam's saying there isn't as much value in tagging as they thought? And if the tagging is really for use internally at Sam's, then this supports the research that has shown closed loop environments are the best ways to get value out of RFID. Once something hits Sam's dock, it is essentially in a closed loop. In many ways it might be more effective for Sam's to do the labeling themselves rather than risk errors in what's delivered by suppliers. At least Sam's has total control at that point. If the tags are wrong when they come in from suppliers, will Sam's know it right away? If they do, they are auditing the products anyways and adding their own tag will require little effort. If they don't know it is wrong, they'll figure it out some time later and that will cause significant problems for Sam's - that would warrant much costlier fines rather than lower ones. I'm guessing Sam's is auditing all pallets anyhow, so they're prepared to relabel anything that is bad. If the labeling then is for their own closed loop purposes, I can see many suppliers paying the 12 cents. There is little incentive to do otherwise until many, many more retailers demand the same functionality from them. If they are dropping the cost that much is Sam’s saying there isn’t as much value in tagging as they thought? And if the tagging is really for use internally at Sam’s, then this supports the research that has shown closed loop environments are the best ways to get value out of RFID. Once something hits Sam’s dock, it is essentially in a closed loop. In many ways it might be more effective for Sam’s to do the labeling themselves rather than risk errors in what’s delivered by suppliers. At least Sam’s has total control at that point.

If the tags are wrong when they come in from suppliers, will Sam’s know it right away? If they do, they are auditing the products anyways and adding their own tag will require little effort. If they don’t know it is wrong, they’ll figure it out some time later and that will cause significant problems for Sam’s – that would warrant much costlier fines rather than lower ones. I’m guessing Sam’s is auditing all pallets anyhow, so they’re prepared to relabel anything that is bad.

If the labeling then is for their own closed loop purposes, I can see many suppliers paying the 12 cents. There is little incentive to do otherwise until many, many more retailers demand the same functionality from them.

]]>