If there are lingering doubts about RFID’s value in retail, it’s time to move past them. There are now dozens of proof points that show retailers can realize significant improvements in inventory accuracy for selected categories, with apparel leading the way. With RFID, inventory counting can be done faster, more frequently and more accurately than with traditional barcode-based methods, leading to significant reductions in out-of-stocks and markdowns with corresponding improvements in both revenue and gross margin.

But not every retail category is a good candidate for RFID. Retailers have limited capital and multiple initiatives to invest in. In order to rank RFID in the portfolio of IT investments, retailers are finding they need a framework to evaluate whether RFID is right for them.

In this paper, we break down the question by examining the mechanisms that create benefits, the criteria that make categories suitable and examples of results from the field.