Mobile barcodes explode into shopping: Sccope and AisleBuyer

If you needed any proof that mobile shopping has hit the mainstream, look no further than the six separate launches so far this week. You can see yesterday’s crop in our report here – but today we’ve got a double-whammy of barcode-based shopping services – one price comparison service and a self-checkout app.

Sccope:

Sccope is an on-line price comparison service – you enter the product you’re searching for, and it will return results from both on-line and real world retailers. You can browse categories including Electronics, Books, Gaming, Home & Garden and Music for the best prices.

The app being launched today is an iPhone and Blackberry version of the same service. On mobile, the app will activate your camera so that you can scan a product barcode – and it will return a price check for you.

AisleBuyer:

The AisleBuyer app is also powered by mobile barcodes – but it uses them as a mobile checkout. This app only works in retailers that have partnered with AisleBuyer, because the service needs to be integrated with the backend structure of the store itself. When you pick up a grocery item in the store, you scan the barcode with AisleBuyer. The app collates all the items you’ve scanned on this visit and sends it to the retailers checkout system. You can then pay for those goods through the application itself – so you don’t need to go the checkout for any reason.

The app also ties in other services that can be useful in-store – so the store can send you promotional offers and coupons through app, as well as product information and reviews.

What we think?

There is a growing demand for on-the-spot services and information when grocery shopping – see our report. Both of these apps cater to that need in very different ways, but both through the same medium of barcodes.

For Sccope, I honestly don’t see a bright future. In a fatal move, the application costs $1.99 on iPhone and $2.99 on Blackberry. There are numerous services (including Bing for Mobile and ShopSavvy) that already provide this service for free.

AisleBuyer might actually go somewhere. It’s a fantastically useful service – for consumers it completely eliminates the need to queue when paying for goods, and for the shop it cuts back on the need for checkouts and their operators. But it has one massive weakness: trust. The retailer needs to be able to completely trust its consumers. The opportunities for casual theft with this app are truly extraordinary. The launch partner for AisleBuyer in Massacheusets is Magic Beans – a baby gear store for affluent parents. Maybe they feel their customers are settled and reliable, but nowhere can actually guarantee that.

About Cian O' Sullivan

Ace reporter, Cian, has moved on from GoMo News. He is currently the office manager for Photocall Ireland - Ireland's premier news and PR photography agency. You can check out the site at www.photocallireland.com. If you want to contact him directly about anything, Cian's new email is cian at photocallireland dot com.
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