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Wal*Mart continues push for RFID adoption
John3 writes "Wal*Mart is continuing to push for vendors to add RFID tags to cases of products for easier tracking through their warehouse distribution system. Most vendors have until 2006 to comply, but their top 100 suppliers must have the tags in place by 2005. Wal*Mart stopped their push for retail level tagging last summer, but by forcing tagging at the wholesale level the cost of the technology will drop as vendors comply with Wal*Mart's decree. How long before price is no longer a barrier to RFID item level tagging?"
As usual, Wally World is asking others to innovate on their behalf, to their benefit, and asking the supplier to foot the bill. The suppliers don't have a choice, because if you're not in Wal~Mart, you're not anywhere.
I agree. The main problem with huge chain stores such as WalMart is that they push local businesses out of business, ensuring that most of the profit generated by them gets funnelled back to the shareholders rather than the local community.
This is financially destructive to local mini-economies, as the meagre minimum wage doled out by them to local employees barely feeds anything back of worth.
Wal-Mart is implementing this system to better track their inventory and manage it. What privacy right of yours or mine does it affect?
The tin-foil hat brigade on slashdot hates RFID even when it has nothing to do with them. It's amazing that people to immediately defend p2p's legitimate uses, but not RFID.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
The original poster does have a point though, if you interpret his recommendation to boycot WalMart to mean that we (the consumers) should change our habits so that we don't shop there as long as they don't care about us or our privacy. In other words, make it so that respecting customers translates into profits. And that's perfectly valid, actually the preferred, way for consumers to change behaviour of corporations in capitalistic system. (The other way would be making laws that restrict use of RFID tags, which in captilistic society should only be used as a last resort measure since it interferes with competition and free market.)
There was a time, 25 - 30 years back, when every item in a grocery store was individually price-tagged, and the cashier would read the tags on the item and enter it into the cashregister. Then barcodes were introduced, and when there were errors in the barcode database, many stores advertised that you would get the item free!
Eventually the individual price-stickers vanished and you are required to remember the prices on a cart full of items. Last week I opted to take advantage of an in-store special on coffee, but at the checkout, my receipt showed the regular price. There was no dispute. The coffee display - and special price - was clearly visable from our location, but the cashier did not have the power to override the barcode data. I could pay full price and get the coffee, cancel the coffee and not get it, or pay full price and wait in line at 'customer service (sic)' where I had to sign a docket to get my refund!
RFID tags will be in everything. You will come to accept it. and when your are injured my their misapplication, either though somebodies incompetence or mallice, you will be further inconvenienced for meager compensation. It will not take 25 to 30 years.
Because it is not just as simple as "You pay less for a product, therefore you are saving money."
When a Walmart opens in an area, the local average wage goes down. Way down. This negatively impacts where you live: lower wages = lower tax base = lower services or higher taxes.
Walmart offers such horrible benefits, most employees use the benefit package of their significant other for health coverage. This means that it generally costs local business more on benefits after a Walmart comes to town. The result is higher prices for the stuff that you don't buy at Walmart.
So, next time you think you are saving 5 cents on your Pop Tarts, remember, it's probably costing you a lot more in other areas.
- Tony
This is somewhat off-topic, but I saw a lot of people talking in this direction so I thought I'd post a top level comment.
Wal*Mart has a policy; every year they will approach their vendors, and they will demand a 5% reduction in wholesale cost. AFAIK this is not negotiable.
For the first few years, it's doable. However, eventually the supplier will run out of fat to trim, and will start to cut into the meat.
This means (pick at least one):
Lower quality merchandise
Lower pay/benefits to workers
Offshore manufacturing
Levi Strauss used to make the best jeans on the planet. They employed many US workers, and you could buy a pair and wear them for 20 years. They now make NOTHING, and are nothing more than a relabeller of crappy asian knockoffs that wear out in a few dozen wearings. This is due mainly from pressure from their largest buyer, Wal*Mart.
This has happened to MANY companies. The problem is, by the time it gets down to deciding to offshore your manufacturing, you're screwed. You're 5+ years into the relationship with Wal*Mart by then, and they're your biggest customer. You've invested millions into production capacity to feed them. You do what they say or you go out of business. They know this, and they will crush your balls until you lower your price, and they don't give a damn if that means that you now have to close your US plant, turn the town it was in into a slum, and have your clothes made by 10 year old girls in the Phillipines. And if, in the end, you decide to not fire your US workers (or whatever) to drop your price to them, you'll quickly find out how one-sided your "relationship" with them was; they'll drop your ass into the pit of bankruptcy, find another supplier to screw, and not shed a tear.
By all means, if you want the quality of what you're buying to keep going down, and to eventually have everyone in the US employed flipping burgers for each other, keep shopping at Wal*Mart.
See, it's all very good to shout "capatalism" from the rooftops. But capitalism isn't strictly dollars. Consumer choice is part of the equation as well, and consumers make their choices NOT strictly on price, or everyone would be driving Kia's, or strictly on quality, or everyone would be wearing Carhartt's.
Personal morality also enters into purchasing decisions. A moral consumer does not just say "I'll buy whatever's cheapest, fuck everyone else." Retailers know that; if they didn't, you wouldn't see them backpedalling every time they get associated with sweatshops.
Also, capitalism doesn't usually take the form of a buyer waiving a death sentence at a seller and saying "Now, I think you're going to drop your price this year, RIGHT?" That's not capitalism, that's extortion.