Nov 3, 2004 11:15 AM, from staff and wire reports

Wal-Mart Stores Inc plans to extend EPC (Electronic Product Code) technology involving radio frequency identification to its Sam’s Club outlets. RFID will be put to use this autumn in a Sam’s Club store in Plano TX.

The Bentonville AR-based retailer has indicated to its suppliers that they can deploy EPC whenver they wish. By January, Wal-Mart says it will expand RFID implementation from one to three distribution centers in Texas and raise the total of participating stores from seven to more than 130. Most are in northern Texas, with the rest in south central Oklahoma.

“I sometimes get the feeling that people think we are going to flip some gigantic switch on January 1st, and tagged cases and pallets will appear from more than 100 suppliers,” said Carolyn Walton, the Wal-Mart Information Systems Division vice-president who is handling EPC implementation.

According to Wal-Mart, RFID should provide retailers more visibility of products as they travel from suppliers to distribution centers and to stores.