Typical Grocery Store Checkout Lineups
Typical Grocery Store Checkout Lineups

(RFIDWorld.ca) The workings of grocery shopping could change completely if and when the introduction of RFID tags on merchandise is put into place.  Imagine putting all your purchases into a cart and simply walking out of the store with everything being automatically scanned because of RFID tags on each and every product.  It will make your shopping trip a lot shorter and more importantly the worst part—standing in line-ups—will be completely eliminated.

Researchers from Suncheon National University in Suncheon, South Korea as well as Rice University in Houston, Texas have come together and created an RFID tag that can be directly printed onto each grocery item just like a price tag.  Items such as potato chips, cereal boxes, and even canned items will potentially be some of many products that will have a simple printed RFID tag somewhere on the surface of the packaging.

The tag is said to be a replacement for barcodes at the grocery stores and they can immediately scan the items as you are walking out and possibly could eliminate a line up of any sort altogether depending on how the RFID scanners would be mounted in the stores.

The way it will probably work, according to officials that are involved in the making process, is that you will simply have to walk past a detector, pay the amount on display and walk out.

The tags are made up of an ink laced with carbon nanotubes so that the codes can be printed onto plastic or paper that is used to cover any food product.  Researchers are aiming to fit 96 bits into a tag the size of a business card.

As of now the new tags costs about 3 cents to print but the researchers are trying to bring that price down so that more stores will be willing to choose the new tags over the current barcode system.

Forward Vision Marketing | We Market Technology

3 COMMENTS

  1. I’m guessing that still won’t eliminate the hassle of when items listed on sale don’t ring out or misjudging the amount you’ll need.

    I kind of like being able to see everything go down the belt…

  2. To answer to TW : “How will this affect produce & meat?”

    Tags are passive. It means no electrical activities when it is not in the the field of the reader.

    As a consequence it will have no affect procuded. As a comparison, is there any affect produced jsut near to your mobile phone or any electronic parts when it is switched off ?