With all of the talk about RFID, I found this take from Supply Chain Digest to be particulary interesting. Essentially, they are saying that any gains from RFID are fleeting at best, and come at the expense of competitors.

The point is that the consumer spending only grows by such factors as the economy, discretionary income and population growth, and that any top line benefits a retailer of consumer goods company received from RFID or any other initiative can only come out of some competitor’s pocket. The $12 billion cited by Accenture is not extra revenue really available to manufacturers and retailers, but rather the amount of consumer spending that might shift to one retailer or manufacturer from another based on relative in-stock performance.

Why is this important? Because it says that the top line benefits from initiatives such as RFID (assuming for a moment they are real) are market share gains, not market expansion, as commentators often seem to imply. Meaning:

1. Early adopters will take market share from late adopters, at least temporarily.

2. When most everyone is doing it, things will return to as before, absent any lasting impact from the “moment of truth” switches to other brands or retailers that were more consistently in stock.