At the turn of the millennium the claim that Wal-Mart was best known for in the business community (besides selling cheap plastic shit from China) was it’s ability to track and deliver merchandise in a efficient manner that made the competition’s heads spin.

More than half way through the oughties that advantage has disappeared as Target and the other big-box chains have not only copied by bettered Wal-Mart’s distribution. Last year, however, Wal-Mart touted Radio Frequency Identification technology as the next best thing.

Turns out it wasn’t.

From Baseline:

The news from Wal-Mart chief executive Lee Scott in August was not what the radio frequency identification (RFID) sector wanted to hear. The retail giant’s second-quarter sales, while up 8.8 percent, had once again fallen short of expectations. Worse, because of a need to lower prices, the company was reducing its forecast for year-end earnings from continuing operations by 10 cents per share.

The tepid earnings report came at a time when the RFID industry was desperately hoping for a clear signal from Wal- Mart that the technology could produce benefits. It had been four years since the nation’s largest retailer embarked on an ambitious program to implement RFID technology throughout its operations, and so far there was seemingly little to show for it.

It looks like better tracking of cheap plastic crap from China (and meat so poisonous that it’s brought down a top company) isn’t the way to convince customers to spend more at Wal-Mart.
Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 0741 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.