Barcode Zindabad !

Before I start let me first clarify that I am a big fan of RFID and I really love that technology but because of the kind of incidences I am going to describe now , RFID technology gets a bad name. In fact this is an attempt to learn from the past mistakes ...

Well it was sometime in May , I was in Hyderabad attending the Retail conference. There was a very impressive presentation by ITC about the RFID implementation for their brand "Wills Apparels " . In fact they had some real innovative ideas like an enclosed RFID reader for reading the loads of garments coming in etc. They showed a very impressive film about how they went about selecting a special tag which were UHF type and could read from a long distances .... So in short a very rosy picture of a perfect RFID implementation.

This Sunday as usual my wife saw that magic world in the news paper called "SALE" and that too this time it was 50 % at "Wills Apparels" , as usual there was small catch - only if you buy above Rs. 7000 ! After lot of time at the shop and overcoming our guilt by promising ourselves not to buy anything else in the next month , I came to the cash counter. I was waiting to see an amazing action where in the guy at the counter would pick up all the apparels just cross them on the RFID reader and there we would be ready with our bills ....

But

yes a big BUT , I heard that beep which I was never expecting and red beam of light moving like a chameleon eating an insect. The red beam grabbed the barcode and I had nothing else to say ....
"Barcode Zindabad !" (Long live barcode) .

I tried chatting with those guys at the counter "Kuch problem hai , RFID tag se ? " and the usual story "Woh chalata nahi hai" .

My goodness, the bundles of crores of notes that must have gone down the drain started dancing around me. And believe me I was more dejected than the day I saw our politicians dumping those bundles of notes in the assembly during the "No Confidence Motion" .