Companies Use Active RFID Cards to Improve Customer Service

The cost of the system is based on the number of cards a particular business uses. A Novitaz customer would receive the readers, software and integration free of charge, then pay an annual fee for the cards based on the number being used.

Munshani declines to describe how the existing unnamed customers are using the system—at those clients' requests—but says he is discussing the system with several major companies, including marketing information firm Nielsen, which could utilize the system as part of its in-store marketing project, known as P.R.I.S.M. (Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric), to more easily track consumer activities. At this point, however, Nielsen has not used the Novitaz system, though it has been in conversations with the company about it, he notes.

Thus far, says William Dupre, VP of operations for Nielsen's In-Store division, Nielsen has trialed passive RFID, as well as other technologies, and is a member and sponsor of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas.

The company has conducted testing of RFID for tracking people, carts and baskets in stores as part of the P.R.I.S.M. system, Dupre says. However, he adds, "we discovered, through testing, that there are many points of interference in retail stores, including metal cans and several products containing water and other fluids."

Still, Munshani reports, any interference problems would be resolved by Novitaz's active RFID system, which would not be affected by the presence of metal or water in a store or other business.