RFID: A Review of its Relevance and Application in South African Retailing Systems.

The advent of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has enabled identifying an object using a radio signal. RFID has become the talk of the day when world retail giants including Wal-Mart, Tesco, Target, and Albertsons announced their implementation of the technology to ensure efficient supply chain management, and, naturally, demanded that their suppliers meet RFID requirements. Today, these retailers boast some of the best supply chain systems and management in the industry worldwide. The increase in adoption and application of RFID, therefore, seems inevitable. It has been envisaged that the near future will see almost all new products sold to consumers having an RFID tag that can allow them to be remotely and uniquely identified and tracked. The potential impact of RFID on the South African retail industry is significant. This technology is mostly employed in supply chain management and customer relationship management. In supply chain management, RFID can benefit retailers in many ways apart from the mere identification of products and suppliers, such as monitoring the production process and the sequence of activities from the material production to delivery of the final products. Preliminary studies reveal that while South African retailers are aware of RFID and are interested in its adoption, few are actively engaged in pilot tests or planned implementations. Although, they are aware of its benefits, the relevance and its application in the South African retail sector is still limited. This paper reviews the relevance of RFID and the application in South African retail system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]