Walmart drops inventory robots from its stores

Re:Walmart drops inventory robots from its stores by theptip on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @12:48PM (#24991282)

I believe Walmart uses RFID extensively in their logistics/distribution pipeline, and they have a lot of control over their suppliers, so I'd assume they would use it in the store if it was viable.

https://www.atlasrfidstore.com/rfid-insider/walmart-and-rfid...

I'd be interested to know the precise reasons for not using RFID on items though, I suspect it might be something like "tagging $1 items is cost-prohibitive, and the system isn't useful if you don't tag every item".

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Re:Walmart drops inventory robots from its stores by parliament32 on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @12:55PM (#24991342)

I'd be more inclined to suspect that the sheer square footage of their stores makes it cost-prohibitive to outfit the space with the sensor infrastructure (comparing to Lululemon, who has much smaller stores). The tags themselves are fractions of a penny (I'm seeing $0.002 on alibaba) and are just applied as stickers, so I don't think that's too much of an issue -- not to mention Walmart probably has the buying power to insist their suppliers pre-tag all items.

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Re:Walmart drops inventory robots from its stores by thaumasiotes on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @06:07PM (#24994004)

> not to mention Walmart probably has the buying power to insist their suppliers pre-tag all items.

That wouldn't stop them from paying for the tagging. If it happens at all, everyone later in the supply chain has to pay for it.

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