While browsing through shoe displays at 32 of Bon-Ton's U.S. department stores, shoppers can use their near field communication (NFC)-enabled phones to learn more about each style, as well as whether a specific size and color is available at the store"”and, if not, how they can most efficiently acquire the shoes they are seeking.

Valio, a Finnish company that manufactures dairy consumer products, as well as powdered milk and other ingredients for the food industry, is piloting an automated solution for monitoring products as they move through packing and shipping processes, via RFID-enabled wheels on carts, also known as trolleys, that transport the goods.

Shrink, consisting of shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud, organized retail crime and administrative errors, cost the retail industry more than $112bn globally last year, according to the 2012-2013 Global Retail Theft Barometer, and represented 1.4 percent of retail sales, on average.

With RFID, return on investment derives from automated, accurate, real-time inventory tracking, says McLeod Williamson, RFID business development manager at Zebra Technologies. He provides an update on RFID applications in retail supply chains and describes how other industries are starting to leverage the technology.

In a survey of supply chain executives across industries, Motorola Solutions found that more than a third are planning to either expand existing warehouses or add new warehouses to their networks. Mark Wheeler, director of industry solutions, discusses technological and consumer issues driving this and other trends.

Use of RFID tags at the item level is upstaging case and pallet tagging among many retailers, says Tom O'Boyle, director of RFID at Barcoding Inc. O'Boyle explains the benefits derived from item-level tagging and looks at other innovative applications for RFID, including hybrid systems that mix active and passive tags.

The smart home appliance market, defined by products with built-in connectivity, will witness substantial growth over the next five years, reaching nearly $25bn by 2018, according to ABI Research. Currently limited to the top-end luxury models, wireless connectivity will slowly permeate to lower tier brands and models.

New implementation guidelines for leveraging GS1 standards in apparel and general merchandise ecommerce have been released by GS1 US. The Voluntary Guidelines for Exchanging Extended Attributes for eCommerce were developed in collaboration with more than 15 retailers, vendors and solution providers participating in the GS1 US Apparel and General Merchandise Initiative and are available at www.gs1us.org/eCommerceExtendedAttributes.