Crumpled QR Codes and Barcodes in Retail Scenarios

Jun 01, 2021

Today, barcode technology has become an inseparable part of the retail industry, and QR codes have become ubiquitous because of their outstanding usability and benefits. While barcodes and QR codes in retail stores provide many advantages, the crumpled ones can become a source of frustration and problem for retailers and customers alike. They can delay checkouts, lead to long queues at the billing counters, and ultimately impact customer service. Speed is crucial in the retail world and wrinkled QR codes can become a hindrance in achieving your business goals.

Common Scenarios of Crumpled QR Codes and Barcodes in Retail

Crumpled QR codes can be highly distorted, have low resolution, and speckled bars simultaneously, making them difficult to read by barcode scanners. Here are some common scenarios retail employees and customers may face with crumpled QR codes.

Crumpled QR Codes on Plastic Packaging

At times, scanning QR codes on thin plastic packaging can become difficult because of the glare on it. And when the barcode is crumpled, scanning becomes even more challenging. First, you would want to get rid of the glare, and next, focus on the code for successful scanning.

QR Codes on Curved Surfaces

Curved-barcode

Another challenge arises with QR codes on curved surfaces, such as cylindrical containers, which makes barcode scanning difficult for retail store employees. Crumpled QR codes become even harder to be scanned. Since QR codes are square, most barcode readers fail to scan the ones on curved surfaces as they are not optimized for such scenarios. Low contrast and glare further worsen the situation.

QR Codes on Paper Receipts or Coupons

Crumpled-barcode

People tend to fold paper receipts or coupons, and if the fold happens to be on the printed QR Code, reading it can become challenging. One can try to get rid of the wrinkles and creases on the paper and bring the barcode reading device closer in order to scan. However, in a high-volume transaction scenario such as retail, this becomes too much of a task.

Scanning Crumpled QR Codes and Barcodes from a Distance

barcode-at-distance

A store employee or customer may face issues while scanning a crumpled barcode on a product kept on a shelf at a certain distance or height. The situation is somewhat similar to scanning a crumpled QR code from a screen placed in the front of a meeting room while sitting at the back. As it is advised to scan barcodes at the line of sight and from a distance below 1 meter, reading crumpled QR codes in such a scenario can become more problematic. Most barcode readers fail to read QR codes from a long distance, let alone the crumpled ones.

Incorrect Placement of Barcodes

Imagine a situation of a crumpled QR code placed on the corner of a box. Reading the barcode in such a situation will become extremely difficult. The same problem happens with products of unusual shapes when the barcode gets wrinkled and distorted. With a free barcode scanner app, you won’t be able to read the QR code.

Crumpled QR Codes on Small Products

Tiny-barcode

Barcodes are hard to detect on small products. If your barcode scanner is not optimized to scan small QR codes, it becomes a problem. In retail, this scenario is quite common as there are products of all sizes. While scanning crumpled QR codes on smaller products, the end-users should use a scanning device with a higher resolution. If you still can’t read the barcode, consider switching to a commercial barcode reader SDK that allows configuration tweaks and improvements for better accuracy and decoding rate.

Although crumpled QR Codes can give you a tough time, a commercial barcode reader SDK can help you make changes in the configuration to achieve a better scanning accuracy. Adjusting a few parameters in the settings can help you read wrinkled barcodes as well as damaged, angled, and curved ones. However, the same can’t be achieved with an open-source barcode scanner app as you won’t be able to make customizations. An enterprise-grade barcode reader SDK will also come with technical support to help you out whenever you are stuck.

Dynamsoft Barcode Reader for Crumpled QR Codes in Retail Stores

Dynamsoft Barcode Reader SDK works well with all sorts of barcodes, be it crumpled QR codes or damaged ones. Deskewing crumpled QR codes may diminish the quality of the image, which can further degrade the barcode recognition accuracy. But, Dynamsoft Barcode Reader uses pre-processing features to auto-deskew barcodes while maximizing their recognition accuracy. It offers a high decoding success rate for deformed or crumpled QR code retail.

Try Dynamsoft’s barcode SDK with a 30-day free trial to explore multiple APIs and pre-processing features. Check out the online demo to see it in action.

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