August 6th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Scanning your groceries yourself with the supermarket’s handheld scanner is something you may well have already done. Instead of waiting in line for a cashier to scan, tally and bag your groceries, you save time by scanning as you go and doing your own check-out. However, now in certain grocery stores you can go even further by using a bar code scanner app in your own smartphone to scan each grocery item you’re buying and to expand your shopping experience by receiving personalized offers, syncing with loyalty cards and tracking your budget while you shop. The first supermarket company in the United States to make this available to customers has been the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC, with its Scan It! Mobile app service. Starting with three grocery stores and plans to roll out the capability to 45 more of its stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The company could extend the service to the 400 or so grocery stores it operates in total, including the other states of New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey.
How Can You Use a Bar Code Scanner App?
By using a grocery shopping app like this in your smartphone, you can not only get directions on how to find the store in the first place, but once you’re there, you can also get relevant and specific offers according to where you are in the store and what you’ve already bought. With targeted coupons being sent to your smartphone for each shopping trip, you can save money as well; Stop & Shop estimates possible savings for customers on groceries of between $250 and $500 per year. The grocery shopping app also gives customers access to online accounts, including checking for gas points, A+ School Rewards and personalized savings, as well as to daily information about sales promotions for stores in general. To use the app to scan your groceries, you aim the camera of your phone at the bar code of a grocery item to see the price on your phone screen and to add it to an electronic shopping basket. When you’ve finished shopping, the bar code scanner app transmits the information via the supermarket’s Wi-Fi network to the point of sale, where you pay as you would normally. The same wireless network also allows the retailer to send you personalized information.
Happy customers and increased sales are not the only benefits for grocery stores making such bar code scanner apps available to customers with smartphones. Because the customer has in effect already financed the scanning device (the smartphone), grocery stores can envisage making corresponding savings by reducing the amount of in-store scanners they have to buy, as well as decreasing labor costs, which are typically between 12% and 15% of their total expenses.
Check Your Smartphone Compatibility
Using your mobile to do this means having a compatible smartphone. Currently for the Scan It! Mobile grocery shopping app you’ll need either an iPhone 3GS or 4G, or a compatible Android device. The list validated so far includes Android 2.2 running on Nexus One, Motorola Droid1, Samsung Galaxy, and HTC Thunderbolt 4G. The app can be downloaded for free at the Apple App Store or the Android Market.
Posted in Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: Android device, Android Market, app, Apple App Store, bar code, bar code scanner app, coupons, electronic shopping, HTC Thunderbolt, in-store scanners, Iphone, loyalty cards, mobile app, Mobile app service, Mobile grocery shopping app, Motorola Droid1, Nexus One, online accounts, point of sale, Samsung Galaxy, scan, scanner, shopping app, smartphone, Stop & Shop, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi network, wireless network
May 27th, 2014 by Elma Jane
The newest Tesco Extra store in Lincoln is offering customers a revolutionary new checkout alternative that improves the customer checkout experience by reducing the time spent in checkout queues.
The global leader in the development of automatic data capture (ADC) solutions for the retail industry, Datalogic, installed the world’s first bar code scanner in a supermarket. Today, their newest technology, allows the shopper to place their items on a checkout belt, in any orientation, and have them automatically scanned by the Jade X7 Automated Scanner. Items are then automatically directed to a bagging area just like traditional checkout lanes. This frees up staff to spend more time engaging with shoppers and delivering great customer service at the checkout, driving up satisfaction and loyalty.
As the shopper places items on the checkout conveyor they pass through scanning arches which automatically read bar codes and visually recognize items at a much higher speed than a traditional checkout configuration. The items are then directed to one of three bagging areas for bagging and payment and the next customer’s transaction can begin immediately.
Datalogic has invented the Jade X7 Automated Scanner using advanced high performance imaging and provides the technology as a key building block to key system integrators around the world who customize checkout installations to meet the specific needs of retailers and their customers. The new, high-speed retail checkout for Tesco was designed by NCR allowing up to three customers to pack and pay for their shopping simultaneously. The combined solution is capable of automatically scanning up to 60 items per minute.
Datalogic provides the building blocks for a completely re-invented checkout, enabling store associates to continue to deliver great customer service by reducing the time customers spend in the checkout lane. Datalogic continues their heritage of inventing, adapting, and applying technologies that aid retailers and system integrators in developing solutions that make the in-store shopping experience move valuable to customers.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: Automated Scanner, automatic data capture, bagging and payment, bar code, bar code scanner, checkout configuration, checkout conveyor, checkout lanes, checkout queues, customer checkout, customer service, Datalogic, retail industry, scanner, system integrators
