I have worked with RFID tags a long time starting in the early ’90s creating RFID tag systems to track ocean containers and their contents. Now it looks like we will soon start seeing the direct benefits of RFID tags at the consumer level with the RFID tagging of individual items at your local store.
Familymart in Japan is doing a pilot test where they have individually tagged every item with a RFID tag. The benefit of individual items having a RFID tag is that checkout happens almost instantly. At checkout a RFID scanner scans all items simultaneously instead of the clerk having to scan each item one at a time. Checkout times in this Familymart pilot are running about 10 seconds per shopper. See NetLinkRFID’s posting: FamilyMart Demonstrates RFID’s Convenience to Customers for more details on this pilot project for RFID tagging individual items.
When individual item RFID tagging becomes widespread in retail location, it will have big effect on us. The top one is no more lines. No more lines at the grocery stores, at movie theaters, at school, etc.