FamilyMart Japan RFID Pilot

Familymart and other companies announced an ambitious retail RFID project in December. At a Familymart conveniece store in Minato-ku, Tokyo, sales items are individually tagged and, at the checkout, the POS machine reads multiple tags at once. Customers can also use RFID payment cards.

This pilot test started on January 30 and will last till February 24. So far, the company seems to be satisfied with what they are seeing so far. They say the checkout processing is twice as fast and it now takes about 10 seconds for each customer. Even during the time when the store is very crowded, with this system, there are only about three people waiting in a line for the checkout.

See report at : https://ubiks.net/local/blog/jmt/archives3/004984.html

With over 6300 stores in Japan, FamilyMart is one of the larger players in the convenience store market. Founded in 1981, it was also one of the earlier chains to expand into the various Asian markets, opening its first Taiwanese store in 1998. It also has operations in South Korea and Thailand.