The Hindu Business Line : Barcoding gains pace in consumer goods

Over the past few years, barcoding of fast moving consumer goods such as biscuits and chocolates has gained speed and currently 70 per cent of such goods are barcoded by the manufacturer. However, as Mr Sameer Parekh, Managing Director, Intellicon, a barcode solutions provider, points out, barcodes are used to effect only in the organised retail business, which constitutes just 5 per cent of the overall retail trade in the country. This presents a huge opportunity as smaller retailers take to using the barcodes as it helps in the quick movement of goods and speed and accuracy of transactions.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Parekh said that FMCG makers are using barcoding technology to track movement of goods right up to the time it is delivered to the retailer. The barcoding of cartons which contain small products also helps in effectively tracking goods. Barcoding at the manufacturing end, Mr Parekh said, only marginally adds to costs but the benefits are huge.

Intellicon has tie-ups with several US-based companies for barcoding technology, one of which is Zebra, a mobile barcode printing and labelling solutions company. Outlining the strides made by barcoding technology and the retail trade in the West, Mr Parekh said that its principal, Zebra, along with other companies, has developed unique solutions for several High Street retailers in the UK.

Book retailer WH Smith found that its shoppers perceived queuing as a barrier to visit their stores. Zebra developed a `queue busting' technology where the purchasing process was streamlined with WH Smith staff, with mobile scanners clipped to their trousers, scanned products in customers' baskets while they waited in line. At the checkout counter, a transaction receipt is printed to speed up the paying process.

For another High Street ladies and children clothing retailer, Ethel Austin, Zebra, along with another company, Telxon, developed radio frequency (RF) technology to link its central ERP system at its distribution centre. The wireless communication system allows the staff total mobility. Once goods are scanned, all details of the product are instantly updated through the link and accessible to employees throughout the organisation. Similarly, another retail chain, CWS Retail, has implemented a barcoding solution using short-range RF technology to label its `reduced to clear' items at its stores. For meat, poultry and bakery products, freshness of produce and `sell by date' are issues.

In a supermarket dealing with scores of such goods, keeping track of expiry dates and re-labelling them is a huge task. Now, technology allows employees to quickly scan barcodes at the shelves itself using handheld scanners, tap into the database, and re-label them right there. However, as Mr Parekh points out, there are no active users of this technology in Indian retail.

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