By the end of next year, Cole Myer estimates at least 20,000 individual product codes or SKUs (stock keeping units) will be live as electronic product codes (EPC) and the company will be ahead of the world in terms of price data synchronization with key suppliers and manufacturers, according to Coles Myer manager of e-business and methodologies, Dougal McBurnie.

EPC is a set of data standards enabling automatic identification and sharing of product information necessary for RFID readers.

Speaking at the GS1 Impetus 2006 conference in Melbourne yesterday, McBurnie said being first does present its challenges as the company cannot be in a position where multiple data standards are used by retailers, as well as multiple standards for sharing data.

"Using differing standards for sharing data drives up costs and increases errors; there are a lot of standards in the world relating to e-commerce," McBurnie said.

"When we first looked at the EANnet program the first driver was business efficiency and ultimately trying to lower head office costs by removing multiple data key-in. From a supplier perspective, it will ultimately drive cost down and make it better for customers.