RFID Helps Target Transform Holiday Shopping Experience

Brick-and-mortar retailers have been struggling to find ways to compete with the convenience of online shopping. Target might have found a solution—one that leverages radio frequency identification technology.

Target has created a Target Wonderland pop-up store in New York City's Meatpacking district. A shopper entering the Wonderland area is given a token (with Target's red bull's-eye logo printed on it) containing an embedded passive high-frequency (HF) transponder, based on the ISO 14443 standard. NXP Semiconductors made the RFID chips in the transponders, which were provided by Vanguard ID Systems. Visitors can choose to register their token and associate the transponder's unique ID number with their social-media pages, though that is not required. No credit card or other personal information is stored on the tokens, which customers are welcome to keep.

Each shopper entering Target's Wonderland is given a token with an embedded passive HF RFID transponder.

Once a customer has finished shopping, he or she can take the token to a checkout counter, which is fitted with an Apple iPad and an RFID reader from RFID Academia. When the token is tapped near the reader, the iPad displays that person's digital shopping cart. Shoppers can delete items that they might have decided not to buy (or any that their children may have added without their knowledge) and then pay with a credit card or cash as they normally would.

A visitor can choose to register his or her token and associate the transponder's unique ID with that individual's social-media pages.