advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

RFID: RETAILER DREAM OR ETHICAL NIGHTMARE FOR
CONSUMERS – Continued
that the consumer makes during the post-purchase period. The major fear is
that this personal information could be then sold to other parties, including
marketing firms and even the government. This could be the 21st century’s
version of mailing lists, but with so much more information about individuals.
It is a marketing professional’s dream, but potentially the consumer’s worst
nightmare.
Defenders of the technology have suggested that consumers worried about
loss of privacy could simply tear the tags off their packages before leaving
the store. However, there are reasons why this may not be practical. First,
the technology will allow retailers to track where merchandise was bought,
so the tags will have to be intact when processing customer returns. Second,
the tags will almost certainly include warranty information that will have
to be retained for the lifetime of covered products. With these constraints,
it hardly seems likely that consumers will be completely free to remove
the tags.
Here is one example. Imagine RFID tags on every can or bottle of beer.
The RFID can track when the beer was opened, when the beer is empty, and
even the time the beer was consumed. Now imagine that it could also crossreference
with your cable television system to see what you were watching on
television, such as NASCAR or football. What marketing professional would
not want that? However, what consumer would like to have someone keeping
track of how much beer they consume?
It may come to a point where manufacturers might even be willing to negotiate
with consumers for lower prices or even free product (incentives) in
exchange for the marketing information. This concept still has a way to go.
One of the websites that examined this possibility was www.priceline.com.
Priceline.com offered the opportunity for the consumer to bid for products
in order to get the best price. Due to the level of uncertainly of whether the
consumer would “win” the bid, and the emotional issues attached to this concept,
the idea did not work.
The problem was that the best way to sell products and services is by not
having consumers think too much. Impulse buying is a significant part of
sales. Another effort currently being extensively utilized is in store-discount
and customer-loyalty cards. This is a precursor to RFID tags, but usually does
not go beyond the checkout counter. However, it does collect a significant
amount of data which allows retailers to target their incentive offerings and
understand their consumers better.
RFIDs do also have some other uses. Barcodes have sped up the process of
checking out. RFIDs could make this process even faster. Imagine being in a
supermarket to grocery shop. As you put products into your shopping cart,
the RFID tag is scanned into a mini-computer on the handle of the cart, and
also into the computer system in the supermarket. On the cart you can instantly
see how much your bill is as you are filling the cart. When you get to the
192 ADVANCED THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SPORT MARKETING