Conventionally, retail products include barcodes, which are optical machine-readable representations of data relating to the product to which it is attached. Normally, during checkout, a cashier or customer equipped with a scanner or a checkout robot with a scanner (e.g., automated checkout, self-checkout, etc.) reads the barcode. Once the barcode is scanned, a computer connected to the scanner identifies the product and returns a corresponding sale price for the item. In turn, the robot or cashier receives monetary funds from the customer that equal or exceed the sale price to close out the sale of the product.
Retailers are automating their checkout processes to increase productivity and throughput in their storefronts. Unfortunately, some retailers lose throughput and productivity when products have barcodes that fail to follow international standards. These international standards specify where to place the barcode, how to print the barcode, or other formatting criteria. The standards may consist of Global Standard One (GS1), which specifies global trade identifier formats, and other international standards for barcodes.
At the checkout counter or the point of sale, the average scanning rate for a specific robot or cashier may be significantly impacted by the quality of the barcode. In other instances, when the barcode is poorly printed on a product, the cashier may have to manually identify the product by inspecting it, confirming its inventory number in the product database, and confirming the sale price. Additionally, when the barcode is inconsistent with current industry standards, the scanner may not be able to decode the information stored in the barcode. Out-of-specification barcodes may cause loss of time, which may be estimated to be several seconds, especially when the barcode cannot be read by one of several automatic readers (e.g., fixed scanners or hand-held scanner used for larger items).