Every product sold should have a standardized, small, tear off label with UPC and brand name. When you finish the last of a product that you use regularly, tear off the label and save it. Next time you go shopping take the stack of labels as your shopping list.
This is lower tech than a bar code reader but gets the same result. You can keep a pouch or clip for labels on every trash can. This would help stores to provide shopping services or online shopping. It is easier to keep a pouch on every trash can than a barcode reader, then scan the labels at the computer when placing an online order.
Some products include discount coupons, but not all. It would work best if all products had this.-- tolly2, Jan 31 2002 Cat hacker http://www.cexx.org/cuecat.htmHow to hack a :Cue:C.A.T.(TM) [thumbwax, Jan 31 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Just to warn you, there are some pretty pedantic people around here who love to pounce on spelling errors and the like. So, you should probably change "lables" in the title to "labels" soonish.-- hippo, Jan 31 2002 Why not just take the empty wrappers? (Welcome to HalfBaked by the way.)-- LardyBloke, Jan 31 2002 SemiBaked in the form of the :CueCat.-- phoenix, Jan 31 2002 CueCat?-- angel, Jan 31 2002 I've heard that hippos can be surprisingly dangerous, but I'd never before seen one with its own warning device. ;o)
Oh, and :Cue:C.A.T.(TM) is a personal barcode reader.-- beauxeault, Jan 31 2002 [admin: Fixed title spelling.]-- jutta, Jan 31 2002 delboy - being baked in industrial practice is quite different from being baked in the consumer market.-- quarterbaker, Jan 31 2002 :Cue:C.A.T.(TM) is also a privacy issue. See link for the dirt and how-to. I was given one once - I gave it back straightaway with a firm suggestion to return it to Radio Shack - where no doubt, they'd asked her name, #...-- thumbwax, Jan 31 2002 Hi [tolly2], welcome to the halfbakery. I've given your idea due thought, and while I appreciate the conveniece I'm worried that if bar code labels tore off too easily, people would scam the system by pasting the label on a more expensive can and handing that to the cashier. If the products are similar the cashier might not notice.
So I cannot vote + or - yet. I'll give it a few more years' thought and update you on my progress in 2010. Thanks.-- phundug, Dec 07 2006 Hmm, I'm actually in the habit of writing down the particulars of manufacturer, model number, etc. as I buy things I might want to replace and that aren't strictly grocery-type commodities. (Clothes, appliances, kitchen gadgets, certain types of food it's hard to find a good kind of, etc.) I think it would be easier if manufacturers simply used consistent, easy to identify human-readable model identifiers. Or put a URL on the label. (That would be even more useful because you could get product specifications and also recommendations about replacements when they inevitably discontinue your favorite dishware.)-- beland, Dec 07 2006 Have you thought enough yet, [phundug]?-- notexactly, Feb 03 2018 random, halfbakery