Who's been wearing your jeans?

As soon as their doors open tomorrow morning the Japanese retail giant, Mitsukoshi, will introduce a system that uses mobile phone-like PDAs to read RFID-tagged designer jeans. The system will be introduced at nine Mitsukoshi department stores across Japan. Nihonbashi and Sendai stores will be the first to introduce it on September 1.

In addition to the PDAs, sales agents can use personal computers to view sales, orders, inventory, and how many times a pair of jeans was tried on (do we really want to know?!?). Still, hygiene issues aside, this is a novel use of technology. The PCs are used to analyze sales, order out-of-stock items, and predict potential demands for different types of jeans. The buyers at Mitsukoshi's headquarters can access the data from all nine stores.