Scanning Adventure 12/21/10: Round Products

I am getting real tired of trying to scan round product containers.  Things like the Clorox Disinfectant Wipes, Centrum Vitamins, and Flintstones Vitamins have annoyed me the last few shopping outings.  The other day I had a hard time getting Clorox to scan at Wal-Mart until I found a combo pack that has three packaged together and the barcode is on the flat cardboard packaging around the bottom of the containers.  Today I was at a pharmacy trying to scan the Clorox and the first bottle I picked up to scan said it was not the right product.  This was after a minute of trying to get it to scan.  Then I tried another one and gave up on having any success at scanning it.

I have had slightly more luck getting the Centrum vitamins to scan, but I pretty much always get the thing saying it does not recognize it as a Centrum barcode.  Sometimes I have seen them as boxes with the bottle inside the box and those barcodes scan easier.  As for the Flintstones Vitamins I have trouble finding ones that are not the Gummies.  Not only are the gummies only in a round bottle, but the barcodes do not seem to work.  The ones in a box are much easier to scan and actually the only type that seems to work for this scan item, but I find them hard to find.

Anyways, bottom line is that I have found the round bottle item scans a nuisance.  I think that the scanning technology in the app has trouble with recognizing the barcode because the barcode is curved on the bottle and it is reading them as something they are not.  Or the app is totally messed up and does not have all the barcodes for the products, but this does not apply to Clorox because I really have had success on these most every time if I stuck to it.  Centrum and Flintstones, though, have to have some barcodes not counting despite it saying any of those products are supposed to work.  However, it is still hard to get the ones that do work to scan due to the round bottle.

Scanning Adventure 12/19/10: Wal-Mart and K-Mart

Finally decided to attempt scanning stuff at Wal-Mart today.  Thought it would be good since there seems to be a good amount of items available to scan.  Yeah, well it did not turn out too well partially because it is crazy in Wal-Mart.  Mostly, though, because most of the time it did not recognize me as close enough to scan stuff at Wal-Mart, which seems to happen at pretty much all big box stores for me.  I did at least scan Clorox wipes and the Nerf gun items.

I was annoyed that I could not get the video game items due to them all being behind the cases.  Definitely need to go to Target for those scans, as least the one closest to me has boxes on display you can pick up to look at the back and read about the game (and scan barcode for us CheckPoints addicts!!!).  Also, could not even find most of the food items to scan, as my Wal-Mart carries like no food.  I guess you need to go to a Super Center.  Not a big deal for me, though, as I always scan the stuff at the grocery store near my house anyways.

K-Mart was not quite as much of a zoo, but worse reception than Wal-Mart.  I was totally determined to get the Cuponk scan, though, since this is the only store to do it at.  Finally got it by going near front of store, but sometimes it feels really dorky to do this and then carry an item back to where it goes.  However, with everyone Christmas shopping right now, it somehow does not seem so bad to be browsing and not sure what to buy.  Not to mention I actually did that in the end with the one thing I was going to buy because it was not worth standing in the long checkout line for my one measly item that cost $1 and only $1.39 when not on sale.  At least getting the 100 CheckPoints and scanning a Belkin product for 50 CheckPoints made the whole sorta wasted non-purchase shopping trip not seem so bad.