Wal-Mart recently decreed to almost 70,000 of its suppliers that they must start using RFID chips—a nightmare for smaller companies that might not be able to afford to implement such a system. Fortunately, an RFID provider has agreed to supply the necessary system for $25,000. The cost for setting up a full RFID tracking system, according to Forrester Research, is upward of $9 million. RFID Ltd., a Denver-based supplier of the equipment, is offering a deal to the first 12 Wal-Mart suppliers that sign up for its Black Box compliance service. For just $25,000, the company will provide the Black Box service, including hardware, software middleware, implementation and knowledge transfer. Nicholas Chavez, president of the company, will personally supervise the implementations.

“This unprecedented offer is a very important example of how our RFID implementations are affordable and beneficial to small and medium sized retail suppliers,” says Chavez. “The first movers for RFID compliance mandates were large companies with billions in revenue. We have taken the knowledge gained from those large implementations and have streamlined it for businesses doing less than $10 million to $100 million in revenue.”

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