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A long-held retail IT fantasy is that complete item-level RFID will be deployed. In theory, this would allow both merchant and shopper to know precisely where every item is, making both inventory and finding that wayward box of strawberry-flavored corn flakes quite easy. But the economics of placing an RFID tag — the cost of which still tends to plateau at about five cents each — have made it nonviable for all but the most expensive products.
Hold that thought for a moment. Now let’s consider Amazon Go, which is Amazon’s attempt at an entirely automated physical store. But instead of RFID tags, it uses cameras and video analytics. It presumably starts with a perfectly accurate snapshot of every item in the store and knows exactly where each one is situated.
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