Walmart Means To Spy On Clothing Use

247wallst.com ^ | July 23, 2010 | Douglas A. McIntyre

[Yosemitest]

Walmart Means To Spy On Clothing Use
July 23, 2010 by Douglas A. McIntyre

Walmart (NYSE: WMT) plans to put radio chips into clothing including underwear.
The big box retailer wants to know what and how much people buy so it can order enough inventory.
Walmart will be, of course, accused of spying on its customers,
but the question is whether there is any harm in it.
The move should certainly improve the company’s supply chain management.
The new system will allow Walmart to see right down to the size level which clothing in about to go out of stock. 
If  it is effective,  all the Walmart locations will probably use the technology.

“This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds
is something that we feel can really transform our business,” said Raul Vazquez, the executive in charge of Wal-Mart stores in the western U.S. told The Wall Street Journal.

There is some concern that if the radio-powered tags are not taken off the clothing that the movements and behavior of customers can be tracked.
That depends on how rigorous Walmart is in removing the tags at check-out.
Human error is certainly an issue at a retailer as large as Walmart, but tracking a pair of jeans or underwear would seem to have limited use
and it is hard to see how it would really cause privacy issues.
Secret tracking of the clothing would be an PR disaster for Walmart
which means it will likely be careful about whether the devices leave its stores.

The technology should increase inventory efficiency for Walmart and its competitors.
It is hard to quantify what the cost saving for this are, but it will allow the retailers to order inventory “just in time”
instead of having large amounts of clothing sitting in warehouses waiting to be shipped until retail workers decide which items are about to sell out.

The process would also have some benefit to customers.
Those 34 long pants buyers will not have to drive 20 miles to find that their favorite jeans are out of stock.

[cva66snipe]

I know when someone hasn't had the time to look in the stock room for an item, and they tell you they don't have it but it'll be in tomorrow.

They are telling you the truth or as much of it as they can. Stockrooms at Wally World are empty. They have no more on hand inventory. That was done away with and replace with their so called on time delivery system which is anywhere from a day to weeks not on time at all.

The stores I've been in they work especially the ones at night putting up stock that arrives on the trucks that day. They literally pull the stuff off the truck and take it out on pallets too the department and stock the shelves.

The managers don't like this system and they take the wrath from customers when the situation is entirely out of their hands. Bentonville controls on hand inventory of the stores. You could e-mail them or write a letter but it does no good anymore. Once upon a time Walmart VP's answered the mail some would even call customers. Now they refer you to a local associate who has no power to do nothing.

Unless some serious management changes are made at Corp level Walmart on it's current course will join K-mart as another was once a number one store. Sam Walton would not recognize the store he created. Walking through one and seeing unstocked shelves with empty stock rooms my guess his he would have lit a fire under some VP's feet. He would have also likely not discontinued high volume sales items to save shelf space.

[TheOldLady]

Pssst! Don’t tell anyone.

[TheOldLady]

"Human error is certainly an issue at... Walmart..."

This is the underwear uh... understatement of the last two centuries and this one combined.

[TheOldLady]

American are theieves, for the most part (flame away, but it is true)

Some people who shop at Wal★Mart are thieves. Someone who thinks everyone is dishonest is projecting.

Here's your flame suit:

[sig226]

Yes, but this is a lot of BS. The whole point of bar codes and SKU numbers was to track what sold and maintain an accurate inventory. Everything they have is already in their database with a unique SKU for its size and color. They know when it sells and how many remain in stock. There’s no need for this.

[TheOldLady]

Yeah, leave it to gunner’s gang to mess up big brother’s system. Way to go, gunner! :-)

[Moonman62]

I don’t think bar codes contain information about clothing size.

[Grunthor]

www.jcpenney.com

[50mm]

I don’t wear any!

This post is worthless without pictures. :-0

[PghBaldy]

Most of my friends are liberals (from when I was one too). There are frw things they hate more than WalMart. Many of them proudly never shop there, because of its supposed labor policies. I seriously doubt the Obama regime is involved with this.

[lionheart 247365]

....... not good ,,,,,,,, not good at all .

[Larry Lucido]

Ya gotta wear SOME clothing, silly.

Here, put these on.

[TheOldLady]

That was no skin off your nose, Larry. Now give Eaker back his shoes.

[Slings and Arrows]

Hey, they've got to know how to best employ the inmates at those FEMA detention camps.

[Richard Kimball]

Microwave, meet clothes.

And it makes them nice and toasty on cold winter mornings.

[TheOldLady]

Hey! We're going to be those inmates. This is me:

[oldteen]

Not unless it's the same size as your waist (which is most unlikely!) :0)

[Salem]

"Hey, they've got to know how to best employ the inmates at those FEMA detention camps."

Can I sit next to you in Obama's gulag?  

[sig226]

IIRC every size had a different SKU, so as long as the retailer entered the complete set of SKUs, each size was tracked.

[Doe Eyes]

Isn’t this what their cash registers tell them?

Yes, makes no sense.

This seems like overkill, as well as an invasion of privacy.

Do you support warrantless wiretaps?