RFID tagging has progressed beyond Apparel and Tires within Walmart stores. The new categories impacted are Home, Electronics, Toys, Sporting Goods, and Automotive Batteries. There are thousands of new suppliers to Walmart which will need to add an RFID label to their products.

Auburn University’s RFID Lab (ARC) acts as an independent third party that helps businesses create and test relevant testing specifications. RFID Inlay suppliers send new inlays to ARC to test against these specifications. Walmart is using different ARC specifications depending on the Category and Subcategory of products to ensure they get the performance expected in their application.

The ARC W1, W3, W4, Y specs are being used by Walmart for most product subcategories.
These specs have different performance requirements for the different types of products. Many inlays
work for more than one specification.

Printing and encoding RFID labels can be difficult. Use Zebra’s Print and Encode Service which can do this for you. Work with your Zebra Supplies Account Rep to get started.