Product Scanner Educates On-Land Consumers Online

Qode, a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based infrastructure company, has teamed with wireless, automated-data-collection manufacturer Intermec Technologies to launch its personalized shopping system -- Qoder. The system intends to blend on-land and online shopping behaviors via a tiny bar-code scanner, which enables consumers to scan the UPC codes of virtually any product sold at more than 220,000 retail outlets nationwide. Users can scan product information by picking up an item and using the Qoder device to read the UPC code. Once the information is obtained from a bricks-and-mortar store, users then dock the Qoder in their PC to access product descriptions, reviews, prices, availability, and purchase options. The company has assembled the world's largest directory of UPC bar codes and pumped in over a billion bits of consumer-oriented information called Product DNA. "The Qode System, working with the Qoder scanner, is the first real system that truly homogenizes on-land and online shopping for the collective benefit of consumers, retailers, and manufacturers," explains Steve Winter, Intermec senior vice president, Strategy and Business Development. The Qoder device is small enough to placed on a keychain and retails for $79.95. Manufacturers interested in being placed on Qode Universal Directory can e-mail the company at [email protected]