Retail Archives - Ten Random Facts

Barcodes completely changed the face of business.

Barcodes are patterns of lines or two dimensional shapes that are usually printed onto a flat surface, and they can be read by specifically engineered machines.
The primary idea and form of barcodes was designed in 1949, by friends Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland, both alumni of the Drexel Institute of Technology in Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia, in the United States, for which they received a patent three years later.
‘Barcode readers’, also known as ‘scanners’ are used to read barcodes, although many smart phones and other devices now have this capability.
American David Collins created the first commercially used barcode, that he developed from 1959 onwards for identifying railcars, and it was named ‘KarTrak’, and the stripes were coloured red and blue and were able to be read by a scanner.
Barcodes are said to have been loosely based on the Morse code system, by means of lengthening the dots and dashes into wide and narrow stripes, although inventors Woodland and Silver developed it into what appeared like a bull’s eye, while the reading machine used was based on technology used in the film industry.

Barcodes are typically used to categorise and identify objects and individual people across many industries, and the information is usually compiled in a database.
The grocery industry became interested in the use of barcodes in 1966, and they were introduced to retailers starting mid 1974, with a packet of gum being the first ever object to be scanned, although uptake of the new technology was slow, and it was not until the 1980s that it was more commonly used.
The most economically viable and practical barcode scanners generally use a light sensor and lens, in conjunction with decoding technology, to interpret the code.
Barcodes are highly practical as they allow for easier locating and managing of items in a retail environment, and changes that affect each item stocked are readily made, by entering the information in the database.
There are many variants of barcodes, that can be both linear and square-based, among other shapes; with each variant having a specific name, such as ‘QR code’ or ‘Code 93’.

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Do line up for the Boxing Day sale facts.

Boxing Day sales typically are shopping extravaganzas that occur on the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, but sometimes run for a week.
Boxing Day sales generally occur in Australia, Canada and parts of the United Kingdom.
The 2009 Boxing Day sales in the United Kingdom, saw approximately 12 million people visit the shops.
Popular shops that support the Boxing Day sales generally open as early as 5 am.
Boxing Day sales include great bargain priced items and the shops often strategically lower there prices to bring in customers.

Retailers that support Boxing Day sales generally have a limited stock of items, particularly those with the greatest discounts, and they often try to sell those items that did not sell by Christmas.
Shops that support Boxing Day sales are often full of people, shoulder-to-shoulder, due to heavily discounted items, and they sometimes limit the customers in the shop at any one time.
Boxing Day sales are generally reviewed in news reports, focusing on the crowds, queues, and times of arriving.
Boxing Day sales became popular in the 1980s, and were most likely established to encourage consumers to return to the shops after Christmas.
In Australia, it was expected that $1.9 billion (AUD) were to be spent in the 2013 Boxing Day sales, with a 1/3 spent in the state of Victoria.

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