A Grocery List Scanner In-Store Gives Shoppers Super Convenience

| Retail

A Grocery List Scanner In-Store Gives Shoppers Super Convenience

Turning a smart device into a grocery list scanner has many benefits for shoppers.

Top of the list? It eliminates the need for customers to carry a physical shopping list in their bags or pocket. Instead, they can access a digital list from any location or store.

In this blog, we look at how retailers can give their customers a barcode scanner list maker on their own smartphones. This is both convenient for the shopper and sales boosting for the retailer. We’ll also illustrate how a smart device app equipped with Scandit Smart Data Capture offers so much more than a basic digital shopping list.

Retail Grocery Coupons

The need for a shopping list

We are all familiar with the inherent need to create a shopping list, whether manual or digital. It provides a checklist of all the essential items we need, whether from one store or multiple stores such as a pharmacy or fresh produce market. Without it, we feel we are wasting time, leaving us frustrated.

Lists help retail customers stay organized, know what they want to purchase, and avoid having to walk through the entire store looking for inspiration.

The downsides of traditional shopping lists

Despite the ubiquity of smart devices, many households still use tools like memo boards in their kitchen. This is because many people still opt for the traditional way of reminding themselves what to buy at the grocery store.

However, it has drawbacks.

It’s time-consuming and not really practical to create and erase a grocery list every week. And if the shopper needs a reminder of what they’ve bought, it’s hard to keep up with.

New ways to make digital shopping lists

List making applies to all shopping, with the most common being grocery. But lists are also important in many other situations such as hosting celebrations, preparing for a vacation or for home improvements.

Here’s how a basic digital list-making process works:

  • The user creates a ‘new list’.
  • Users can scan a product’s barcode to add it to a list or the user types in the product’s name manually, repeating this step until the list is complete.
  • Users can copy or share their list with other people or devices through email or social networks.
  • During shopping, the user checks off or eliminates items off of the list as they shop.

How smart data capture makes digital shopping lists smarter

According to Oberlo, the number of smartphone users in 2022 is estimated at 6.6 billion. Unsurprisingly, their use has increased too among consumers for digital shopping — both for buying goods online and in store for mobile shopping and self-scanning.

Shopping lists make a great addition to self-scanning applications. A good example of this is Danish grocery retailer Coop DK when they added a shopping list function to its Scan Pay app.

Case Study

Smartphone Scanning Empowers Employees, Engages 1.6M+ Customers

Read the Case Study

Another example is Globus CZ which became the Czech Republic’s first retailer to offer customers a smart device-based self-scanning process. The store switched from dedicated scanning devices to scan, create digital shopping lists, and check product prices.

Case Study

The number of active users of Globus CZ’s app, Můj Globus, grew nearly six-fold in just five months

Read the Case Study

By seeing what a customer needs to buy on a self-scanning app, a store can make useful suggestions to go with the shop and draw a shopper’s attention to it while using the app. For example, the retailer could suggest an accompanying wine to go with some cheese that is on the list.

No app? Create a grocery list scanner via the web

It’s possible to create a grocery list scanner without an app. The Scandit Barcode Scanner SDK for the Web enables retailers to add barcode scanning directly to the company website, with no need to download a grocery list app.

Customers simply access your website via the browser on their smart device and use the built-in camera to scan items directly into a shopping list.

Watch this video to see how it works:

Smart data capture takes shopping list to another level

Smart data capture transforms the barcodes shopping list creation by providing retail customers with new features and innovative ways to interact with products.

A digital grocery list on a self-scanning app can be enabled with additional features like Scandit Augmented Reality (AR) and Matrix Scan.

For example, AR enables product information to be displayed on a customer’s smartphone when they scan a product, while MatrixScan instantly finds items on their shopping list and highlights their location on the shelf.

Why smartphones are ideal for creating shopping lists

Using a smartphone to create shopping lists has many benefits. It can be done easily, either from the web or through a barcode scanning app in just a few minutes.

It’s like giving customers a personal shopping assistant in their pocket, helping them to navigate multiple choices and stick to their list of essential items.

In today’s economic environment, every penny counts. A good self-scanning app will track spending and act responsibly on behalf of customers by alerting them if they’ve overspent against their list.

Customers can also share lists with friends and family, saving them even more money by planning cooperatively to get the best deals and ensuring that everyone buys what they need.

And providing useful smart device functionality like search & find and comparative product information helps to boost customer loyalty.

Get in touch to find out how Scandit’s smart data capture solutions can help you create smart shopping lists.