The tags make it possible to track products from manufacturing to retail point of sale. It is hoped that this technology will enable businesses to reduce losses resulting from out-of-stock, stolen or lost products, and to improve efficiency by monitoring the status and location of products.

Smart shelf technology, also developed by the Auto-ID Center at MIT, will be used with the tags. The shelf uses automatic identification technology to monitor the status of products on display, alerting retail staff to low stock or product theft, and enabling automatic reorder. Alien Technology Corp. (Morgan Hill, CA) is manufacturing the tags, and expects to supply Gillette with 500 million units.

Dick Cantwell, vice president of Gillette, says "We are proud to be at the forefront of the introduction of auto-ID technology and we hope our leadership will help enable the wider consumer packaged goods industry to open a new era in its relationship with retail customers."

Benetton Group (Treviso, Italy) clothing will also soon contain microchip transmitters that will allow the retailer to track its garments from their point of manufacture to the moment they are sold in any of its shops. The company’s Sisley line of clothing will contain a RFID tag from Philips Electronics (Amsterdam) that will replace bar codes, which have to be manually scanned.

Philips claims that its smart tags will be imperceptible to the wearer. An antenna-bearing chip smaller than a grain of rice will be attached to the clothes’ labels.