How the Barcode Changed the Shop

[A] A grocer in 1965 knew what was on the shelves and could only guess what had left them. Stock was counted by hand every few weeks, and between counts the shop was managed on memory and habit. [B] The striped label that appeared in the nineteen-seventies is usually presented as a device for making queues shorter, and it did that. [C] Its more important effect was that every sale now wrote a line in a record. [D]

Once a shop knew what had sold, by hour and by line, three things followed that had nothing to do with checkouts. Orders could be placed against yesterday's sales instead of last month's guess, which cut the stock a shop had to finance. Shelf space could be argued about with numbers, and the argument was usually won by the chain rather than the manufacturer, because the chain now held the figures. And a chain could compare one branch with another in a way that had previously been impossible, which made central control both cheaper and more attractive. The scanner is often described as a labour-saving device at the till. It is better understood as the moment when the shop began to know more about the product than the people who made it.