Shopping refers to browsing available goods and services presented by one or more retailers with the potential to purchase a suitable selection of items.
In the past, people would always visit brick stores to make a purchase and have it on the same day. The only alternative was to browse a catalog and place an order through the mail or by phone. There were other instances where hawkers and street vendors advertised their goods by calling out loudly and going door-to-door trading their products. Some of the challenges experienced by hawkers included logistics-related problems, time-consuming, risk of losing their lives, and damage to some of the perishable products. We can conclude that ancient shopping required a lot of commitment and the use of a lot of energy to sell their goods.
GS1 Standards provide a common language that helps to create seamless work processes that allow the business to identify, capture and share information the same way globally. Unique identification and trusted data provide the perfect platform to develop harmonized operations to adapt quickly to new challenges and find confidence in data delivery of an exceptional customer experience. Identifying products via the barcode or Global Trade Item Number [GTIN] and web vocabulary has become the easiest way to increase the visibility of products while marketing or shopping globally. The use of QR codes has benefits that include identifying the batch number, manufacturing, expiry date, company name, and ingredients of the products enabling a customer not to be confused in purchasing the correct product.
Some of the benefits we enjoy using GS1 standards on products while shopping is:
1. standardized supply chain communication- this improves and opens new doors that allow communication to go further to help eradicate renegotiation.
2. Transparency and Traceability-This helps the organization have transparency for ensuring product safety.
3. Visibility and Transparency-This works for suppliers to have greater visibility into the supply chain. If the supplier cannot meet the demand for a specific item, this provides an opportunity to work with another supplier to meet the demands.
People I’ve spoken about their losses and typically pessimistic about recovery and assume that all hope is lost. In this case, there is a good chance you can have them traced and tracked if you act quickly by GS1 standards.
