Stop & Shop Takes Self-Service Scanning To A New Level

Photo by Stop & Shop

In April 2009, I wrote a blog post about ScanIt!, a hand-held scanner you can use in Stop & Shop to tally up your groceries as you shop, and then breeze through the checkout line in seconds because your shopping is already tallied, bagged, and ready to pay for.  I use it all the time because it saves me tons of time in the store, and even if I have a huge cartload of items I can still check through the express lane since I only have one single remaining thing to scan - my shopper's card - before I have to pay.

Now, Stop & Shop has brought that innovation to my smartphone. Available now for Android and iPhone, ScanIt! Mobile puts your shopping right at your fingertips.

I was on my way in to Stop & Shop and saw the big posters promoting the new app, so I scanned the QR code, downloaded the app for my Android phone, and started it up. Set up was fast and easy:

1. Use your phone's camera to scan the bar code on your shopper's card.
2. Choose the Stop & Shop location you usually shop at
3. Start shopping!

Now, instead of having to carry a scanner around in the store, I can just start up the app when I walk into Stop & Shop. The app automatically connects me with the store's wifi network and hooks up the ScanIt! database, and I'm ready to scan items for checkout. The app also delivers special offers and any electronic coupons you may have loaded to your shopping card. At checkout time, I just scanned the "I'm Done!" barcode at the register, paid, and left. Easy. It's pretty great.

In my testing, I did find a couple of bugs.

• The software has some trouble with colored barcodes. Some of Stop & Shop's frozen veggies, for example, have green barcodes on the packaging and it took a couple of tries to get the barcode reader in the app to recognize them.
• ScanIt! Mobile automatically turns on your phone's wifi connection when you start it (so it can connect in the store.)  But you need to remember to shut your wifi off when you leave the store, because the app leaves the wifi active when you exit from it.

Other than those little quibbles, I thought it was pretty sweet. One less gadget to carry around the store, and the functionality was pretty good. Thumbs up.

Now if Stop & Shop could just get a Twitter account, I'd be perfectly happy with them.