What You Need to Know About the Nordstrom RFID Tagging Mandate

Like many other retailers, Nordstrom has recently handed down a RFID mandate to its retail vendors and partners. The mandate will be in effect of all its retail channels including Nordstrom, Nordstrom CA, Nordstrom Rack and Nordstrom Rack CA. Via Retail Touchpoints, Nordstrom is looking to to deploy RFID-encoded ticketing across all of the retailer’s product types and categories.  But, as of right now, Nordstrom’s RFID mandate is only for departments that have received extensive RFID testing. Nordstrom announced an initial RFID mandate program in 2021

Here is a list of departments and products that will require RFID tagging:

Cosmetics & Grooming

• Hair Tools
• Shaving Cream

Unlike other RFID mandates, Nordstrom is not specifically directing how suppliers should acquire or apply RFID tags. However, they do recommend either printing and encoding RFID tags in-house or ordering tags from a third party vendor.

For applicable products as identified above, Nordstrom requires:

• Product be tagged or labeled with an active RFID chip of the appropriate specification. This can be either:
  • A product tag or label with printed retail information and embedded with an RFID chip; or,
  • A sticker with an embedded RFID chip that is then applied to another tag or label with the printed retail information; or,
  • Two separate tags or labels, affixed to the product together; one with an embedded RFID chip and the other with printed retail information.
• The RFID chip must be encoded with an Electronic Product Code (EPC). The EPC must be SGTIN-96 formatted, in accordance with the GS1 Tag Data Standards.
• The tag, label, or sticker that contains the RFID chip must be visually distinguished with a printed EPC logo.
• The RFID-enabled ticket must be affixed to the product in accordance with the GS1 Apparel and General Merchandise Placement Standards.

This information was sourced from Nordstrom’s requirements summary document.