gregjohn schrieb:

> My Android phone has an app that does a bar code scanner that can eventually
> look up the product it scans online to see who sells it for what.  I've found
> prices for things when looking up some very boring, unimportant things when I
> tested it around the house. It has however failed me twice in computer stores
> when I was hurriedly trying to find out if the price were right.  I quickly
> scanned one of the five or six bar codes on the box and it never worked.  Maybe
> some of these were about the UPS shipping or inventory. I never found the store
> product UPC.

It seems to me they don't bother about UPC-A (or EAN-13) codes except 
for products typically sold at supermarkets and other high-volume 
low-margin retailers.

I can imagine that it doesn't pay off for e.g. manufacturers in the 
computing industry to apply for a company code, as the customers have a 
strong say in what products a shop will carry (at least for the products 
the store will make the real money with), so the retailers have 
difficulties trying to threaten the manufacturers with boycotting their 
products. And most retailers will not really bother too much either, as 
the handling expenses are low compared to the margin.

Supermarkets, on the other hand, are strongly motivated to keep handling 
costs to a minimum, and it won't hurt them much if they refused to carry 
a certain brand of toothpaste.

Post a reply to this message