Word: wal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...track gourmet dinners to prevent spoilage. The U.S. military used it in Iraq to electronically search supplies and keep tabs on hospital patients. In Singapore and Helsinki DHL tested it in anticipation of tracking the 160 million packages it ships annually. And in Arkansas the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, is telling its top 100 suppliers to put it on all cases and pallets by 2005, or else...
Manufacturers and retailers are moving forward with RFID for backroom logistics. In June Wal-Mart CIO Linda Dillman gave the firm's 100 top suppliers--which provide half the goods on its shelves--a veiled ultimatum about the stuff flowing into its 103 U.S. distribution centers. Vendors who don't use EPC codes on pallets and cases by 2005 could risk losing business. "By 2006, we'd like to roll it out with all our suppliers," says spokesman Tom Williams. Wal-Mart, which did much the same with the bar code, has admitted there is no timeline for RFID-tagging...
...With Wal-Mart requiring RFID tagging on pallets and cases, the stampede is on for U.S. suppliers to get up to speed. Earlier this month, the Auto-ID Center planned to issue its first RFID privacy guidelines, promising clear notification, choice and confidentiality. Saffo thinks that RFID may save us all some headaches in the future. It certainly might have helped a certain actress caught shoplifting in Beverly Hills, he says. "If only Winona Ryder had waited a couple of years, floor sensors would have detected her purchases as she headed out the door, and just charged her credit card...
Music retailing has traditionally been a fragmented industry of mom-and-pop stores. Guitar Center, however, is following the lead of retail giants like Wal-Mart. After raising $101 million in a 1997 IPO, Albertson and his co-CEO, Larry Thomas (himself a frustrated rock guitarist), went on an expansion run that included opening new stores at the rate of one or two a month and acquiring, in 1999, the Musician's Friend catalog for $48 million. In 2001 the company purchased a 19-store chain catering to schoolkids and beginners called American Music, and last year it opened...
...tough part will be maintaining the chain's hard-won brand cachet. That means keeping service levels high and stocking a $125,000 guitar that may take years to sell but gives shoppers something to drool over. "You'd never see Wal-Mart keep around merchandise just to help customers daydream," says Zackfia. But for Guitar Center, the very best customer is the one who's lost in the music...