A bit of news that escaped me last week: eBay acquired RedLaser, a leading barcode-scanning iPhone application. We highlighted this type of application earlier this year in “Using an iPhone Barcode Scanning App in the Warehouse.” This acquisition is yet another example of how retailers and other consumer-oriented companies are investing in mobile technologies, specifically those that facilitate mobile commerce (m-commerce).

According to the press release:

eBay plans to integrate RedLaser’s barcode-scanning technology into its leading iPhone applications, including its eBay Marketplace, eBay Selling, StubHub and Shopping.com applications, providing more than 10 million users with access to product information for fast and easy selling and comparison shopping. The technology is designed to help consumers find great deals online for virtually any product with a barcode, and for eBay sellers to quickly create listings by accessing pricing trends and product details for millions of items in eBay’s catalog. The eBay Selling application for the iPhone will be the first iPhone application to take advantage of RedLaser’s barcode-scanning technology for mobile users to sell items online.

eBay is immediately transitioning RedLaser from a paid application to a free standalone application. The company also plans to significantly increase selection on RedLaser by integrating more than 200 million listings from eBay, as well as product inventory from over 7,000 global merchants on Shopping.com, including 95 of the top 100 online retailers.

This is really about extending business intelligence to the consumer, about enabling me and you to make “smarter and faster” buying decisions. And for eBay sellers, this will expedite the process of listing items for sale. Instead of typing in product information, they can simply scan the barcodes to upload product information, just like scanning expedites the receiving process at a warehouse.

The possibilities of m-commerce are endless…and so are the challenges it creates. Data quality management, especially with regards to pricing and product availability, becomes more critical than ever. What are the odds that a consumer using his iPhone to comparison shop will find the item he wants is in-stock and on sale at a nearby store, but when he arrives at the store a few minutes later, the item is actually out-of-stock or priced higher? I say the odds of this scenario occurring are still too high.

M-commerce also makes another point clear: the users of enterprise applications are no longer just your employees and trading partners, but also the millions of consumers out there searching for product information: pricing, inventory availability, specifications, user manuals, and so on. Are your supply chain and logistics software applications architected to function in this new reality? Are your software vendors responding quickly enough to this trend?

Related to this topic, I read a very intriguing posting this week in Harvard Business Review by John Sviokla titled “How Barcodes and Smartphones Will Rearchitect Information.” Here is a brief excerpt that summarizes his main point nicely:

We know from the principles of self-organizing systems…that a tagging architecture allows many new functions and capabilities to emerge. The fact that a page link is a standard tag allowed Google to analyze this standard tag with its page rank algorithm. Without the page-link tag, there would be no Google. Likewise, as Redlaser and Scanbuy both understand clearly, the barcode is an existing and growing tagging architecture that helps us tie the physical world to the digital — or as I like to think about it, the integration of the marketplace and the marketspace.

When you begin to think about the lowly barcode and turn your imagination to its possibilities, the mind reels.

Sviokla goes on to provide examples of how barcodes can enable proactive, customized service; enhancement of the user experience; and efficient secure storage. Here is my favorite of the three examples:

Simply attaching a permanent barcode to any product when and where it is purchased allows it to be indexed to all its documentation, service history, ancillary products, parts, etc. The next time you had a problem with your garbage disposal, you could take scan its barcode with your cell phone. The make and model would pop up, and you would be able to pick from a menu of “reason codes” and desired call-back times. The service technician would call you back with full knowledge of you, your product, its warranty, etc. As I’ve written about before, we are coming to expect this type of proactive, informed level of service. Such a move can help “traditional” companies rival their online competitors.

Yes, the possibilities are endless, fascinating, and potentially game-changing. But while the technology is certainly available today to enable these ideas, the “change management” required has yet to occur at most companies. Many CEOs (especially at B2B companies) are still skeptical about the role of mobile technology in their business, and even more are skeptical of social media’s role. Early adopters, on the other hand, have to transform their existing business processes, which typically requires changes to their IT systems, which often requires software vendors to develop new functionality, and then you have to train employees and partners in the new processes and systems, and the list goes on.

Simply put, change doesn’t happen overnight. But the sooner you start the journey, the sooner you’ll be able to exploit these opportunities.

And who would have guessed that in the 21st century the lowly barcode would rise again.

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