Dutch Bookseller Gains Tremendous Advantage with RFID

Here in this piece are some RFID stats that impress. First, the basic news:

Dutch book retailer Boekhandels Groep Nederland (BGN) today is launching an item-based radio frequency identification tag (RFID) tag system at a new store in Almere, Netherlands.
Eventually, BGN will deploy the system throughout its 42 stores, which carry about 2.2 million books on their collective shelves. Some 38,400 books have been tagged at the new store, and the company plans to expand the program next to a retail store set to open this October in Maastricht, Netherlands. The $650,000 passive RFID system creates a tightly integrated and efficient supply chain by using tags on every book sold, said Jan Vink, IT director at BGN. Each tag costs the bookseller about 12 cents, he said.

Now check out this productivity stat:

BGN had previously used bar code technology to track books. The bar code system, which is still in use at the retailers’ other stores, requires workers to spend five to seven minutes scanning each title in 50-book boxes as they arrive at stores. Using the RFID technology, a box can be scanned in five seconds...