Nowadays, competition has become an inevitable part of business where various competitors are struggling for the same wallet share in the market. Information is one of the most important requirements to take the right decision at the right time in this rapidly changing world. Very often marketers try to gather information by using various tools in order to understand the market dynamics. This article explores the possible use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as a research tool to gather information by tracking consumer buying behavior.

One Sunday evening Soniya entered a supermarket as usual to purchase some groceries. She picked up some groceries, paid the bill and came out of the store. By that time, she didn't know that her buying behavior was being observed. Do you know why? Her shopping behavior was being observed by a new technology called RFID. RFID allows companies to make their products intelligent and interactive by using silicon chips as Radio Frequency (RF) tags and sensor technologies along with wireless mobile communication.

These tags can be embedded in a product or carried by the consumers via cards. Each of the groceries which Soniya purchased had an embedded tag called the RFID tag. It allows companies to turn their products, inventory or any other physical assets into items that can sense and disclose their environment, their location and other relevant information about the product. Through this technology, market researchers can assess the behavior of the consumer at a minimum cost, totally in a frills-free environment, with least involvement of labor and in virtually no time as the whole behavior of the consumer is recorded instantly on remote servers.

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