Retailers, wholesalers, and other product distributors typically maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered, purchased, leased, borrowed, rented, viewed, etc. by clients or customers. For example, an e-commerce website may maintain inventory in a fulfillment center. When a customer orders an item, the item is picked from inventory, routed to a packing station, packed and shipped to the customer. Likewise, physical stores maintain inventory in customer accessible areas (e.g., shopping area) and customers can locate items from within the store, pick the items from inventory and take them to a cashier for purchase, rental, etc.
In many instances, the materials handling facility may maintain similar items. For example, the materials handling facility may maintain items of the same type (e.g., soup, salad dressing, books of a series) that come from the same manufacturer. In many of these situations, the items share a common appearance, with the only visual difference being a description of the variation between the items. For example, the manufacturer Campbell's® may provide cans of soup (an item type) with many different variations (e.g., Cream of Chicken, Mushroom, Chicken Noodle). The only visual difference between the similar items is the description of the variations.
While implementations are described herein by way of example, those skilled in the art will recognize that the implementations are not limited to the examples or drawings described. It should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit implementations to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.