Mobile Self-Scanning Must-have Personalization Features & Requirements

| Retail

Retail Grocery Self Scanning Customer

Smartphones are now the key point for contactless shopping. And Self-Scanning is one of the most common use cases.

Self-scanning has gone from a nice-to-have convenience tool to a means to minimize contact in-store. And there are plenty of opportunities to expand on its functionality.

In our guides How to 10X Your Mobile Self-Scanning App, and Best of Self-Scanning, we showcased brands that have used it for more than the core use case.

Here are some great additional features retail brands have been adding to their Self-Scanning apps.

Focus on the individual’s shopping experience

Retail Grocery Self Scanning Customer

There is much more to a Self-Scanning app than Scan. Pay. Go.

And Self-Scanning app personalization is a great way to tap into a customer’s individual shopping mission.

Coop Denmark – a Scandit client – provides an excellent example of how to add additional mobile self-scanning functionality. In its Scan and Pay app, the store used customer data to generate personalized offers, promotions, and discounts.

Other features include shopping lists, tracking loyalty points, recipe suggestions, and competitions.

Metro uses AR to show personalized pricing

screenshot with barcode

Another example is German specialist wholesaler Metro. Its customer base is made up of commercial traders – like restaurateurs, the self-employed, small businesses, associations, and institutions.

Individual Metro stores offer purchase prices that are specific to that customer. These prices are unavailable on the shelf – labels only show the current product retail prices.

So Metro utilized Scandit’s Augmented Reality and MatrixScan technology to display customer-specific prices when they scan barcodes on a shelf. From there the customer’s individual product prices are overlaid on the image.

Personalized Coupons

product offers on smarphone screen

Customers love offers, coupons, and loyalty points. By adding Scandit’s MatrixScan and Augmented Reality (AR) brands can bring them to life on the consumer’s own device.

How?

With MatrixScan and AR, bargain hunters don’t need to fill their pockets with paper coupons. Instead, the store can give them personalized offers via their self-scanning app.

With a Scandit-powered app, customers just point their phone at the product shelf and scan the barcode. The relevant product offer is then overlaid on the screen image.

Yuka builds nutritional information into its app

Other options include customer-specific nutritional information.

reading product details on smartphone

In January 2017, French brand Yuka launched a mobile shopping app that lets shoppers check the nutritional value of food products on the shelf.

When a shopper scans the product’s barcode, the app then evaluates its nutritional value. It then displays the ingredients information on-screen on a scale ranging from red to green.

ID Scanning and Age Verification

ID Documents without Machine-Readable Data

Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK combines the best of barcode symbology scanning and text recognition. As a result, our ID scanning solution is best in class.

Scandit’s ID Scanning recognizes documents like:

  • US, Canadian, and EU driver licenses.
  • Passports.
  • Residence and travel cards.
  • But these are just a few. We cover many more and they are constantly updated.

Valora use ID verification for sign-in

Valora using Scandit technology

ID Scanning and Age Verification are not typically part of a mobile self-scanning application. But it can be used to add extra functionality. For example, fast and easy sign-ups.

A good example of this is Valora, a European convenience chain with over 2,700 outlets. In 2019, it launched Valora Avec, a 24/7 small-format fully automated store.

To shop, customers download the Valora Avec self-scanning app and sign-up by scanning an ID document with their phone. They then use the app to enter the store and purchase food. The entire process is done through the app.

Personalized shopping is the way to go with Self-Scanning

Many shoppers are happy to be marketed to, as long as the offer is relevant. There are many opportunities for mobile self-scanning personalization features and other additions.

It can also help in a variety of ways no matter whether they are financial, customer-focused, or both. Offering contactless shopping can make a huge difference to your business and is safer for shoppers.

These days consumers make no differentiation between shopping online and in a physical store. So retail brands need to reflect this – both online and offline.

By using the right technology, the customer’s smartphone can become an extension of the store. By doing so, people can shop in a safer and efficient way.