Scanning data

Scanning data is a generic term for information that can be stored in electronic form and based on the non-contact reading of graphic codes by a scanner . Scanning data are found in many areas and are used mostly for rationalization in logistics operations because they facilitate, accelerate the transmission and processing of information and less error prone.

Examples:

The post office and other forwarding companies use barcodes to create a data track of the goods being transported by 'scanning' them at numerous intermediate stations during their transport.
In trade standard bar codes (in Germany the EAN used). This means that every product can be clearly identified. Retail companies use this identification to organize the master data of the products and to call them up if necessary (e.g. at the scanner checkout ).

Types of scanning data in commerce

The most common form of scanning data in retail is transaction data , which contains information about completed transactions . Essentially, these are electronic versions of the receipts . For this reason, shopping cart data is the most original form of scanning data. Especially in the early years of the use of scanning technology in retail, the space required to store shopping cart data was a bottleneck . Therefore, shopping cart data was only stored or transmitted in aggregated form. Such an aggregation can e.g. B. take place after:

Time periods (e.g. per day or per month)
Item numbers
Offices
Goods group or article groups

In the retail sector, scanning data was initially mainly used to enable largely automated inventory control systems. In recent years, however, the fact that scanning data contains information about the purchasing behavior of customers has become increasingly important. It would be useful for trading companies to extract this information and take it into account when making decisions. For this purpose, retail companies carry out scanning data analyzes or shopping cart analyzes or have them carried out by specialized companies.