The company's first large retail study, carried out in 2014, found that 34 percent of respondents had either implemented or were currently implementing or piloting RFID. When Kurt Salmon conducted a similar survey two years later, in May 2016, that rate grew to 73 percent. Of the 16 respondents not using RFID, 86 percent indicated that management at their company was focused on other priorities, while only 2 percent felt that RFID would not provide substantial benefits.

Numerous metrics were collected in the 2016 survey, said Jason Sain, Kurt Salmon's senior manager and one of the report's authors, but the most significant "is the pure adoption level. In 2014, adoption was only 34 percent; now it's over 70 percent — that's more than 100 percent growth. That was a huge takeaway."

The second key change in survey responses during the past two years, he says, was in the reported return on investment (ROI) of RFID adopters. In 2014, back-room to front-of-store inventory accuracy (the correct count of goods on the sales floor and in the back room, enabling replenishment in the store front to occur in a timely fashion) provided the single key ROI.

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