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Sam's Club's RFID fee

Wal-Mart has put pressure on suppliers to speed up their implementation of RFID by charging $2 per pallet starting in February for every non-RFID-tagged pallet shipped to a Sam’s Club distribution center in DeSoto, TX.


We asked Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club corporate spokesperson John Simley to help us sort through this announcement.

Simley feels suppliers have been given “fair warning” for the deadline.

According to Simley, “We had described exactly what we were asking of suppliers and by what dates, which is not unusual for a customer to request of its suppliers. In this case, we stated that on a graduated basis that we wanted them to supply, pallets, cases, and items that are tagged with EPC (Electronic Product Code) labels to certain [DCs] or stores aligned with those DCs by certain dates. If you don’t do that, we will have to apply those labels ourselves, and there is a cost associated with that, and so we’re going to pass that cost along to you. It’s not intended as a long-term solution for any supplier, it’s merely to accommodate them until they can develop their own solution.”

Sam’s Club is leading the process because it has fewer suppliers than Wal-Mart’s main superstores and fewer stock-keeping units, which means the implementation of RFID tagging is easier.

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