Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) was an early proponent of the tracking technology known as RFID years ago, but seems to have lost patience with vendors that are taking too long to equip their merchandise pallets with the inventory tracking and shrinkage tags. As opposed to bar codes, a reader can track a package or pallet with an RFID chip without scanning anything; a two-way radio chip is used instead.

2008 is now here, and the world's largest retailer has apparently grown quite frustrated with the slowness some vendors have displayed in adopting the new technology. It will, as such, be charging suppliers $2.00 for each pallet that does not contain an RFID tag as of yesterday. This only applies (so far) to its Sam's Warehouse distribution center in Texas.

Wal-Mart is making it clear that the $2.00 surcharge some suppliers will see is quite a bit more than the estimated $0.20 per RFID tag per pallet. With an estimated 15,000 suppliers still not complying with Wal-Mart's three year-old RFID mandate, company will probably be forcing the hand of slow-to-adopt vendors and suppliers this year as it ramps up to have all products tagged with RFID in all 22 nationwide distribution centers in the U.S. by 2010. Until then, it can make a nice side of change with these non-compliance fines. Perhaps an analyst will ask how much the company has made on the next Wal-Mart quarterly results conference call.

I remember reading this story at Fast Company over a year ago and remembering how prescient it was at the time; here is a CEO that flat out wanted to leave Wal-Mart behind as a customer, based on his company's values and predisposition to remain a powerhouse in its traditional industry.

Instead of catering to the "plunging" vendor prices that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) negotiates every year with the seemingly endless list of vendors whose products it carries, the CEO of Snapper Lawnmower (part of a larger company now) could see the days of the waning influence and cheapened nameplate of Snapper if he continued to sell his premium lawnmowers to Wal-Mart and agreed to lower prices every year, even if it did mean a huge increase in volume.

Part of the reason company execs bow to Wal-Mart in the first place are the visions of huge sales that make balance sheets and income statements seem fat, only to tear into the heart of the company years later when reality sets in. To those company leaders who just want to see increased sales while putting all other considerations aside, I say go for it (and reap the consequences). To those leaders with a sense of value and pride of ownership, read Jim Wier's story and then sit back and think for a bit.