In short, my company like a good few other food/beverage companies need to monitor our sales. In fact, so do the grocery companies through which most of our products are sold.

But when is a bottle of pop different and yet the same? The answer is, when it's chilled. A chilled drink is found in a different part of the store and is aimed at a different kind of customer and yet, it has the same barcode as a bottle on the shelf. Measuring chilled sales verus ambient sales is vital - and yet currently impossible unless you have two barcodes on the product and ask the cashiers to scan the correct one.

So to the fix. Temperature sensitive labelling has been around for a few years but for once, this is a purely practical application.

By printing the barcode on temperature sensitive labels, it would be possible for a different code to be displayed depending on the temperature of the product. When cold, it scans as a chilled drink, when warm, it scans as ambient.

If it's picked up as cold, but sold as warm, it still works. Finally, proper sales data for everyone.
-- jonthegeologist, Nov 09 2004

the chilled stuff would sell to the opportunist shopper or the thirsty. the tepid drink to the person stocking their cupboard or with a gum condition. I imagine it equals out, whats the big deal?
-- po, Nov 09 2004


Good idea. The chilled stuff could be more expensive too.
-- stupop, Nov 09 2004


Interesting. +
-- sartep, Nov 09 2004


[po] It's a rather big deal, I'm afraid. In marketing terms, the cold drink is an impulse purchase, the ambient drink is a take-home purchase. Whilst it's the same drink, they are effectively different markets so gathering effective sales information is very important to the grocers and manufacturers.
-- jonthegeologist, Nov 10 2004


Roll on the Red Army [+].
-- DocBrown, Nov 10 2004


I've never really understood why soda is sold warm.
-- waugsqueke, Nov 10 2004


[jtg] An interesting idea, but can't you infer the intention of the shopper ("take-home" or "impulse") from whether the accompanying purchases to the drink are £100 worth of groceries or a packet of crisps?
-- hippo, Nov 10 2004


Basket size is an important measure, but this is the preferred option
-- jonthegeologist, Nov 10 2004


[hippo]: The purchase might be to drink now (cold) while waiting for the taxi home with the month's groceries.
[waugs]: Because there's no point chilling stuff unnecessarily?
-- angel, Nov 10 2004


[angel] "month"??? £100 is for a week's groceries...
-- hippo, Nov 10 2004


// Because there's no point chilling stuff unnecessarily? //

But you're never going to use the product warm. Well, at least far less often that one would use it chilled. So it seems to me that chilled should be the sold state always.
-- waugsqueke, Nov 11 2004


A fine idea, although it would only be a rough guide. I bought a slab of beer last week which was chilled, but without a big enough fridge to put it all in some was left at room temperature for future use.
The same thing happens in drink sales. I buy cold drinks in the supermarket not because I want to drink them immediately, but because they're in a more convenient location than their warmer colleagues.

<aside> Not sure the EAN boys would appreciate you using more than one barcode on the product, I think that is against current EAN rules</aside>.

[waugs] // chilled should be the sold state always.// what about packs of 24 ? should they always be chilled ? it is rather a waste of electricity
<another aside>I'd like a commerical fridge that only chills, say, 6 bottles in a pack of 24 (a corner chiller), for this very reason</another aside>.
-- neilp, Nov 11 2004


// <aside> Not sure the EAN boys would appreciate you using more than one barcode on the product, I think that is against current EAN rules</aside>. //

Fair to say, the catalogue kings (UDEX et al.) would have to employ another descriptor on their products to describe it's temperature, as that would be the only difference between the two packs, but that's not a great problem.

And technically, the cold product is different to the ambient, so it's two barcodes for two products.
-- jonthegeologist, Nov 11 2004


//I bought a slab of beer last week//
Beer comes in slabs?
-- angel, Nov 11 2004


'we' call them slabs. A slab is normally 24 either bottles or cans - nice.
-- neilp, Nov 11 2004



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