I don’t know why they just didn’t go RFID - that’s where I expected it to go
Walmart in particular invested billions of dollars and more than a decade but had to walk away from it.
-The cost per item is too high
-The system has too many misses.
-The collision avoidance coding to avoid signals from different RFID tags isn't robust enough.
-Unlike bar codes by item which rely on individual scans of each item, RFID tags require a unique tag so that two of the same item are identified as separate purchases. That becomes an exponential supply and coding effort.
-The tags could be blocked, both intentionally and unintentionally, and items would missed from the tally.
-While you can make fake UPC codes, a cashier could identify a mismatch at the register but a recycled RFID tag on a different item doesn't pass a cashier who might detect the error/deception.
-etc.