Wiley Studies RFID Use to Manage Textbook Returns, Halt Piracy

For every tagged volume, its tag's SGTIN and TID are associated with that book's title and the invoice for the corresponding order. This information is then stored in a warehouse-management software module that is part of Wiley's enterprise resource planning (ERP) application.

In spring 2010, college bookstores will begin to return textbooks that did not sell during the fall semester, in order to receive credit for those copies (this is a customary practice for textbook orders). Upon receiving each tagged volume, workers at Wiley's return centers will employ Alien RFID readers to read that book's tag. The PAVE software will call up the records in Wiley's ERP application, ensuring that the SGTIN and TID match for each book.

This will provide Wiley with significantly more visibility into its supply chain than it had in the past, the company indicates, and should ensure that only authentic and authorized returned books are issued credits. Previously, a bookseller in, say, Singapore might purchase 100 copies of a book directly from Wiley as soon as that title was released. Later, the same bookstore might purchase additional copies from a Wiley dealer in Singapore at a lower price. If that bookseller were to attempt to return copies to Wiley that it had purchased for a discount, the company would know this, based on the sales history linked to the book's tag, and could consequently issue a refund reflecting the discounted price. In instances in which contracts prohibit books sold in overseas markets from being returned Stateside, no refund would be given at all.

The tagging system will also offer Wiley improved visibility into the evaluation copies of books that it issues to professors at no cost. The company provides these copies so that a teacher can evaluate a title and determine whether to use it to teach a class. In the event that the book is not used for a class, the professor might try to return it to Wiley, through the university bookstore, seeking a full refund. But because the book's RFID tag would inform Wiley that it is an evaluation copy, this refund would be denied.

Should booksellers attempt to return pirated copies of Wiley titles, the publisher would be able to determine this, since even if a counterfeiter were savvy enough to attach an RFID tag with a cloned SGTIN to a pirated volume, the chip's TID would not match the one in Wiley's records, thus proving that the tag was a clone and the book a knockoff.

Wiley believes that utilizing RFID to authenticate books will lead to significant reductions in fraudulent returns, and provide a return on its RFID investment through cost savings on returns. The proof, the company indicates, will come this spring, when booksellers start returning unsold copies of textbooks, and Wiley begins to use the RFID tag data to authenticate them.