Key Takeaways

• The Walmart RFID Mandate began requiring suppliers to tag certain products with RFIDs in 2022, expanding these requirements in September 2023, with full compliance needed by February 2024.
• RFID Technology uses radio waves to track inventory, offering advantages like scanning multiple items simultaneously and reducing labor costs.
• While RFID adoption is growing, especially in logistics and online shopping, barcodes remain relevant due to their lower cost and simplicity.
• Although RFIDs are generally secure, there are some concerns about potential unauthorized access, particularly in sensitive areas like payment systems.

Why is the Walmart RFID mandate happening? 

Officially, the Walmart RFID mandate policy is in place to improve customer satisfaction. This is undoubtedly part of the reason, but it doesn’t paint the whole picture either. 

Even compared to other retail juggernauts, Walmart buys, sells, and moves ludicrous amounts of products. The increased efficiency of RFIDs saves them exponentially more time and money than most other stores. In Walmart’s case, it’ll also help on the logistics side of things. RFIDs are becoming widespread in the shipping and logistics industries, something that Walmart has a vested interest in maintaining. 

Because of the scale that they operate on, the long-term cost-saving measures of RFID systems save a lot more. And because of Walmart’s status as a retail titan, they’re more than happy to eat the initial implementation costs.