Pay on scan

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Pay on scan describes a sales concept in retail where the supplier of goods presents them to the end customer on the sales area of ​​a sales partner. This can be a department store , a supermarket or something similar.

As soon as the goods pass the cash register and are thus paid for by the customer , the sales partner issues a credit to the supplier based on the agreed billing rate. Hence the name of the concept: the sales partner only pays when the goods have been scanned at the checkout.

In contrast to the classic wholesale concept , the sales partner does not bear the risk of theft and copying , i.e. the total or partial loss of the value of the goods. He does not have to tie up capital for supplies . The sales partner does not have to build up their own product expertise in the respective product group and does not have to worry about reorders, which can be very advantageous, especially for seasonal and fashion products. These aspects make the agreement interesting for the sales partner.

The supplier benefits from the possibility of being able to offer goods without having to rent or buy retail space. He does not have to hire any sales staff and can therefore very quickly get substantial sales areas in real estate and, if necessary, give it up again without any labor law obligations or capital commitment. This allows him to react flexibly to changing market conditions. He benefits from the sales partner's marketing campaigns with little effort. Ultimately, the high customer frequency on the sales floor and the synergies with other product groups of the sales partner increase its sales .

Pay on scan is an important part of a multichannel sales concept in which the same product is offered through different channels. Other important channels are the specialty store under own management, franchise concepts , mail order via catalog, Internet, television programs and telephone marketing and wholesale via sales partners who purchase the goods themselves for further marketing.

Since the supplier is not on site, he needs prompt and exact information from the sales partner about incoming goods and sales. Otherwise a subsequent delivery is not possible with the required precision. This is done, for example, via electronic messages in the standardized EDI formats that are exchanged between the two merchandise management systems. In addition, article masters with price information, shipping notifications and other data can be exchanged.

The electronic data exchange is usually practiced between larger partners who have the technical means to do so. Since the standards are universal and correspondingly complex, while the duration of the business relationship is often uncertain, the effort involved in introducing EDI is sometimes avoided, especially if the companies involved are still working with older inventory management systems that offer little support for such B2B scenarios. For this reason, individually defined, simple formats are sometimes used, which becomes confusing with a large number of partner relationships.

Alternatively, the supplier can regularly check the goods situation on all areas via field staff, which is significantly more time-consuming.