Staples Business Depot Sees Positive Results from Active Tag Test

About 2,000 IntelliTracker tags are in use at the Montreal store on high-value items the managers have deemed likely to be stolen. The tags have a rugged housing; measure 0.25 inch thick, 1 inch long and 1.25 inches wide; and are attached to the items via a variety of attachment methods. Soares says the tags showed a 100 percent read rate during the trial. And based on the average number of times the tags were reused during the pilot (each was collected at the point of sale, then later placed on another of the same item), as well as the tag battery's expected five-year lifespan, the cost of each tag would be 8 cents.

Staples Business Depot has also performed an RFID trial using passive EPC Gen 2 tags attached to a test selection of pallets and cases of goods its suppliers sent to the store (see Staples Business Depot Sees Big Benefits From RFID Test). Soares, however, says that for now, the business is more interested in improving product visibility inside its stores than in its supply chains.

"We pay for goods upon receipt, and we do not have a warehouse—our suppliers ship direct to store," Soares states. From a cost point of view, this sets Staples Business Depot apart from other large retailers that store goods in warehouses or distribution centers, where employing passive, onetime-use RFID tags to improve supply chain visibility could offer more value.

But in the future, Soares adds, if many suppliers show an interest in attaching EPC tags to shipments of goods they send to Staples Business Depot stores, the company would likely invest in the reader and software infrastructure needed to utilize the technology. Soares says he expects to have a final decision on whether to roll out the IntelliTracker system on a permanent bases, and to other stores, in about one month.