February 23, 2005
(IDG News Service)
U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer PLC (M&S) will extend its ongoing trial of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for the management of its clothing stock from nine of its stores to 53 in the second quarter of next year.
"The feedback so far from our staff has been very positive in that the RFID tags have clearly improved our stock-taking process. What takes up to eight hours a week to do manually can be done with RFID tags in about an hour," M&S spokeswoman Olivia Ross said today. "Plus the staff have said that they find the technology easy to use -- simply waving a scanner over a rack of clothes."
RFID systems store, receive and transmit data using antennas on tags that respond to radio frequency queries. Tags can be read when a remote scanner is passed over them. M&S began a trial of the technology itself in 2003 and then moved on to try RFID at the item level in April 2004. The current trial is only for men's clothing, but it will be expanded to include women's undergarments in 2006, Ross said.
"We are looking to test RFID with size-complex items, and for bras alone, there could be over 40 sizes," Ross said. The extended trial is expected to run through the third quarter of 2006, after which the company plans to continue with additional tests. Ross said there are no plans for what items future trials would include or timelines for when RFID would move from the test stage to being used on a regular basis in M&S stores.
BT Group PLC will be the main contractor on the second phase of the trial, providing M&S with IT services such as deployment assistance and maintenance of the RFID readers. BT is also assisting with the implementation of RFID in M&S's food supply chain. M&S has contracted with Intellident Ltd. for the scanner technology, while the microchips are from EM Microelectronic-Marin SA.
M&S is quick to point out that the only purpose for using RFID is to improve its stock-taking process. The RFID tags are not scanned at the checkout, nor is any link made between the garment information held by the tag and the customer's details, such as credit card information, Ross said.
"We don't match personal details to the garment, and we will never be doing that," Ross said. "We are open about the trials, and the customer feedback we've been getting has been positive. The customers we've polled in the stores using RFID have said they noticed an improvement in stock availability, which they like."
In the current trial, the RFID chips are placed inside throwaway paper labels. During the second phase of the garment trial, the chips will be integrated into the paper bar code labels M&S already uses to record the size and cost of the item, and they will have the words "Intelligent Label for stock control use" marked on it so shoppers are aware of the RFID chip. The intelligent labels can be read at speeds 20 times faster than bar codes, M&S said.
The company also provides leaflets to customers in the stores where the tags are used explaining the new technology and what M&S is doing -- and will not be doing -- with the information it collects, Ross said.
Peter Harrop, chairman of the Cambridge, England-based RFID specialist IDTechEx Ltd., said that companies planning to use RFID must show customers the technology's benefits, such as well-stocked stores, and address potentially sensitive issues from the outset.
Harrop pointed to the decision by clothing retailers Benetton Group SpA and Prada to drop their RFID trials after receiving negative reaction to tags being put in women's lingerie and women's dresses, respectively. "I think Prada was quite surprised by the reaction of women shopping in its New York store who didn't like the idea of the store recording dress sizes," Harrop said.
U.K.-based retailer Tesco PLC also found itself dealing with protests after it was revealed that during its pilot with Gillette razor blades, RFID tags were programmed to send instructions for in-store cameras to take pictures of people with the product at the checkout counter. "There was some protest, but Tesco completed the trial, which showed that the technology works," Harrop said. "Tesco has decided to proceed with its RFID trials but to focus on ones that don't have to do with catching criminals for the time being."
Harrop said several of the privacy advocates' concerns are contrived. And based on information culled from the 1,300 European RFID case studies that IDTechEx has in its database, he said he doesn't think privacy issues will derail the technology's use. "People face more intrusion on their privacy through the use of their mobile phones, which can continuously track their whereabouts, and that hasn't kept people away from that technology," Harrop said. "The main thing that would keep RFID tags from becoming ubiquitous is cost."