Metro Embracing Item-Level, Takes Over Wal-Mart’s German Stores
Written by Evan SchumanJuly 28th, 2006
Look for Metro AG in September to start making noise about its item-level RFID efforts, working with Intermec. Germany’s Metro is not only of Europe’s largest retailers, it is among the most technologically-sophisticated retailers in the world.
Although Metro has always been a retailer that needs to be watched, that is even more of the case now because Metro has done something that almost no other retailer has ever done: beaten back Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart moved into the German market some nine years ago when it bought the Wertkauf and Interspar chains. On Friday, Wal-Mart blinked and agreed to sell all of its 85 German stores to Metro