Are there any wireless scanners?

Question about personal barcode pocket sized scanners which add up the price of items scanned?

• My wife has told me that she has observed some people shopping at supermarkets using personal pocket sized barcode scanners that add up the price of each item that you scan as you are shopping. Apparently the barcode scanner allows the shopper to know the total price of the items that you have selected & scanned before they are rung up at the cash register. Does anyone know where these personal pocket sized barcode scanners which add up the price of the items in your shopping cart can be purchased ? Does anyone at Y/A own one ? Can anyone recommend the brand names/model numbers of any good personal barcode pocket sized scanners which are capable of adding up the prices of the items that are scanned ? How much do these scanners cost ?

• Answer:

  As far as I know these scanners are not something you can purchase. They are typically provided by the store. When you go into the store you get to sign one out or borrow it or whatever the process is. These scanners are connected to the store price and item lookup database. As you walk around the store you know exactly how much money you've spent so far. They also sometimes allow you to apply coupons directly to the items as you've scanned them. Or they make coupons available to you based on your purchasing history. So they aren't something that you or I could purchase. They need to be tied to the pricing and item database for a particular store. Right now there aren't many stores utilizing this system, but it's getting more popular. In fact I read about one store (can't remember the name) where you can use these scanners to scan all your items and then when you get to the checkout counter you simply hand the scanner to the cashier. The cashier then downloads the data from the scanner, you pay your bill and leave. Seems to me some people would try to put items in their bag without scanning them. I don't know what prevents that. Maybe they have some type of random check. Not sure how that's being handled, but I'm sure it's not the honor system. Hope this helps.