The Wireless RF Identification Technology (RFID) studied in the 1950s suddenly became the hotspots of IT industry concerns, 2003 and 2004, the big names of the two retail industry in Wal-Mart, Germany, said the RFID, The fire showing RFID in the retail industry has been ignited. At present, many manufacturers on the RFID technology line are active and expect to occupy a place in an emerging market. If IBM has a corresponding solution, Sun has introduced Java tools for RFID, Oracle also introduces support and uses RFID support services. In addition to the practical application of US companies, Japanese companies actively develop RFID chip technology, European companies are also considering the efficiency of improving production processes.
Under this boom, China IT industry also puts a great enthusiasm for RFID, and related reports have emerged, and manufacturers are also actively promoting. However, relative to IT vendors, the domestic retail industry did not show how much interest in applying this technology. For them, RFID applications are still "distant places."
Vastly widened
It has been quite clear about RFID. As a non-contact automatic identification technology, the easiest RFID system consists of three parts: tag (TAG), a reader, and antennas (antenna). The label enters the magnetic field after the radio frequency signal emitted by the interpreter, transmits the product information stored in the chip, the interpreter is read, and then the data processing is sent to the central information system. Since the storage capacity of the RFID tag is more than 96 times of 2, each item of the basic supermarket can be used to represent the unique code. Previously, barcodes used, due to the length limit, only one class code represents a class of products, the mall cannot accurately judge the inventory period of each item. In addition, after the RFID technology is used, the microchip will automatically issue information such as product serial number to the scanner without the need to manually scan like traditional barcode technology. This wireless instant read mode can be high-speed, large-capacity processing information. However, there is only the cost of recruiting cash register people in the mall, but also allows customers to do not waste time queue. Therefore, RFID is considered to be finally replaced with a wide range of barcodes.
From the extent to which information technology is applied, there is currently more information technology in China's retail enterprises to use in the operating level, such as cash register, receipt, warehouse management and other links; the application of management is general, mainly in sales statistics There are some IT technologies in terms of analysis, while the application of decision-making layers is minimal, generally applied in procurement and funding. Yang Qingong, director of the Information Department of China Chain Operation Association, said that most of the domestic retailers have used more technical means in terms of category management, and the main need to be solved is the information from the information, which is in the process of supply chain management. In the process of merchandise management, retailers mainly consider looking for a space from the loss and commodity turnover. It can be seen that within the scope covered by China Retail Information Technology Application, whether it is in supply chain and logistics management, RFID can play a considerable role in improving retailer's profits in shopping malls. . Director Yang said that using RFID, retail enterprises can reduce loss, reduce costs, improve customer loyalty, improve food safety, etc., this industry is a great use of RFID. In theory, the retail industry should welcome the coming of RFID.
Waiting time
In recent investigations, Wal-Mart decided to adopt RFID seems to have a great impact on the technology of this technology, although 22% of respondents said that customers' requests were added to the supply chain, only 7% said it has already Start. At the same time, 65% of the United States believe that RFID technology will be widely used in 3 to 5 years, more optimistic forecasts, RFIDs will enter practical stages in 2006, and prospects are still very optimistic. In contrast, the domestic retail industry will make RFID wait more longer. "RFID is widely used in the process of promotion of government and IT manufacturers." A person in charge of Hualian Supermarket Co., Ltd. said that although RFID has "people", it is necessary to flow in China's retail industry, but need Wait patiently. It is also difficult to see from the person in charge. On the application promotion of RFID, domestic retailers have been more passive. They actively use this new technology to see unclear, and they show "waiting" attitude on thinking. . A deputy general manager of Beijing Wemei Group said that they still don't know much about RFID, although I know this technology, but I really use it "early!"
So what is waiting for the domestic retail industry? "The application of RFID in my country's retail industry is still far away." Yang Qingsong said that the greatest difficulties in implementing applications are cost issues. By the May this year, each RFID's bar code takes 20 cods, even if it can reduce the level of 5 cents that foreign users can accept, the price is still much higher than the traditional barcode than a few dollars. In addition, not only the barcode itself, retailers also need to purchase a large number of supporting equipment for the application, but also a big cost. Therefore, in terms of cost, domestic retailers can only take action only when the cost of replacing old barcodes can be accepted. In addition, there is also a controversy in terms of RFID technology, and because of RFID's "non-porous", it is even protests from human rights organizations. There are existence of these uncertain factors, and RFID is fully accepted and also takes some strength and time. The retail industry generally believes that the popularity of domestic RFID applications is at least 7 years, and there may be a long time between 7 and 10 years.
However, a survey statistics of the China Chain Business Association show that the current wind chain company is getting stronger and stronger in China, sales of joint venture chain stores account for 12% of the chain, and its market share has been more than domestic chains. 4 percentage points. my country's accession to the WTO protocol stipulates that in the 3-year protection period since 2002, there must be a large supermarket chain company with more than 3 branches, must be held by China. However, there is information, in fact, this limitation has already been broken, and some foreign retail companies have more than 30 large-scale supermarkets in China. Domestic retailers face competitive pressure.
Due to such competitive environments, domestic retailers' investment in informationization has gradually increased, according to Yang Director, there is a private retail group in the information basic construction and even invested 170 million yuan. However, it is commonly regarded that the average of IT investment in China is about 0.2% of its sales, which is much lower than the investment in foreign countries. From the perspective of accepting RFID, domestic retailers seem to be more slower than foreign counterparts. In the case where the market environment is increasingly required to quickly strain, the domestic retailers face the passive response of new technologies to bring them a deeper adverse impact.
