Wal-Mart recruiting retailers for RFID use in Canada

With Wal-Mart being at the forefront of the worldwide trend of introducing RFID tracking into its back-end logistics and even into point-of-sale systems, apparently Wal-Mart Canada is also making a headstrong effort to embrace RFID. So much, in fact, that they are recruiting and wooing different retailers to take part in Wal-Mart Canada's RFID program, which by all counts, is way out of the *trial* stage by now.

Well, not really in Wal-Mart Canada, but here in the U.S., where Wal-Mart has had voluntary RFID compliance from a large set of major vendors for quite some time. Wal-Mart, most likely, is probably responsible for pushing RFID into the mainstream merchandising business more than any RFID manufacturer or marketer -- just due to its sheer size.

With Wal-Mart Canada coming on board with a voluntary compliance (not forced, yet), most likely larger vendor partners to Wal-Mart Canada will also choose to participate in the RFID program to ensure they are 1) fully compliant by the time mandatory participation happens and 2) so that these large vendors can remain on good terms with a major buy -- the Wal-Mart Canada folks.