Universal Product Codes – Not so universal!
Over the past couple of months I had had a crash course in Universal Product Codes (UPCs). I assumed there was some magical database that had all UPCs for all products – I quickly learned that this simply isn’t the case.
For example, some stores, like Borders Books, cover the UPC on books and replace it with their own proprietary barcode (i.e. one that a standard barcode reader can’t read). While some big box retailers and wholesalers have custom products developed exclusively for their stores. That LG TV you just bought from Costco is 99% similar to the one I just bought at Best Buy, but the part number and UPC were altered so that LG could offer Costco a lower wholesale price to Best Buy. Guess what? The UPC on the TV at Costco won’t be sold by any other retailer in the world – thus it is impossible to get an exact match based on UPC.
Of course, department stores always want unique items and as a result clothing and shoes sold at departments stores rarely have UPC codes (instead they use proprietary barcodes). That pair of Gucci shoes at Nordstroms isn’t sold anywhere else so it is useless to try to compare the price. That being said, items such as Levis and Nike shoes ARE the same everywhere and if you examine the labels you will find UPC barcodes.
So ShopSavvy will NEVER have data for all items. It is simply impossible. We are working with retailers like Borders to provide us access to their proprietary barcode data (i.e. so we can map their codes to UPC codes) in exchange for access to some of our shopping data (like this). But how hard should we work to include items that are only sold in one place? We have decided that adding items that are only sold through one retailer is a waste of our time – time that would be better spent working with folks like Borders and Best Buy. Do you agree?
On the other hand, we are working on strategies to map similar UPCs (i.e. the Costco LG example) to one aother. ShopSavvy already does this in a way. If you scan an item (i.e. that LG TV at Costco) and it doesn’t come up you can click on ‘use keypad’ instead of ‘use camera’ to scan the barcode and we will find similarly titled items from our database. For example, the 50′ LG TV at Costco that doesn’t come up when you scan the barcode, would come up in the title match with items at Circtuit City and Best Buy (since they carry a VERY similar item with a slightly altered part number). In a future version of ShopSavvy we hope to be able to do this on the fly – i.e. when you scan the barcode. Here is a picture of the screen:
Even if the barcode for my can of soup isn’t in your database, I’d still like to be able to scan the barcode from the last can as I’m putting it in the recycle bin and saving it to my grocery list. Is this possible?
How are you coming on the grocery functionality? The above post from Feb said to look for this in a few months. I would love to be able to create grocery lists by scanning items from my kitchen as I use them up or creating a list of things I want to stock up on. Thanks for your reply and I will hope for this added functionality soon.
One way to improve the completeness of the UPC and retailer database is to enroll users in the process. You could in effect have a price wiki where users enter the price of the item they’ve seen at the retailer. This may be expedited with an ability to process a photo taken of the price tag. This information would then be listed in the database along with the time it was entered. You could also have an open source UPC association approach where shoppers link items with different UPC’s that are the same.
Another way to populate the database, technology permitting, is to have users scan and send images of their receipts. These receipt scans could also serve to allow consumers to better track their purchases and, where compared to the price database, determine how much they over payed.
Points could be awarded for entering data which go towards discounts on merchandise of advertisers who pay to participate. Quality data could be ensured by submission device id and consensus similar to wikipedia.
Another approach is to develop a partnership with price leading retailers like Walmart who should be willing to promote and improve the app and database knowing that on balance they stand to win big.
Finally one could lobby for policies that promote more perfect markets with better access to information. This could include mandatory posting of pricing information to a database similar to Base, truly universal UPCs, the elimination of product branding schemes that make comparisons difficult, and a universal printed or digital receipt format. Society doesn’t win when business practices succeed because consumers lack information of better alternatives. It wins when the best providers win. It looks like you’re well on your way to helping make that a reality. Best of Luck.
Look for this sort of functionality in a couple of months.