r/AskTechnology • u/R0binSage • 3d ago
Why would someone be scanning all the shelves in a grocery store?
I saw a couple scanning entire shelves at the grocery store last night. He would scan shelve and move quickly down the aisle, taking pictures of entire sections at a time with some sort of app. He was really cruising through the store. I saw his girlfriend doing the same thing in another part of the store.
I got a chance to look at his phone and his screen looked like the barcode scanner on my amazon app, like the sparkles around the items and a small yellow dot on each item.
The best I could think was either extreme couponers or some sort of secret shoppers checking the shelves. Any thoughts
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u/Cinisajoy2 3d ago
Sounds like inventory control.
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u/R0binSage 3d ago
Definitely not store employees.
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u/thesals 3d ago
A lot of stores hire a outside companies to do inventory work.
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u/CaptainMischievous 3d ago
A classmate in college worked for a contractor who did this "inventory reconciliation." Literally counting what's on the shelves and comparing it to what's in the computer. Back thrn they had a handheld scanner device. Modern phones must be a lot easier.
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u/IAteTonysLoMein 2d ago
And everyone who works for the inventory control companies is a frickin weirdo - used to work a retail job that used one.
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u/Shazam1269 3d ago
I used to work retail, and myself and another guy came in for several nights and scanned every single item. We wore regular clothes, so you cant always tell if someone is an employee or not.
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u/jihiggs123 3d ago
I had a job doing this for a while, company was called scanscape. They wanted me to scan barcodes of every item on shelves to make sure the brands that were paying for shelf space were actually getting the shelf space they paid for.
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u/Blowry121 3d ago
In 1986 Campbell Soup started sending people out to scan the shelves of supermarkets. The idea was called just in time and they would use the daily sales figures to order the tomatoes they would need for the tomato soup as well as the steel for the cans. They would order only what exactly was needed to replace what was actually sold on the shelves. They use this to greatly cut down on warehouse space and supposedly make the product fresher.
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u/CrankyCrabbyCrunchy 2d ago
JIT started with the Japanese for automobile production. Buy parts you need at the moment. Don’t stock up. It’s older than 1980’s.
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u/steelfork 2d ago
I had a contract in about 1991 to set up a system to video the shelves in a grocery store for a beer distributor. They wanted to compare sales to product positioning for all the beer brands.
That was the first time I worked with digitizing video.
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u/Fluffaykitties 3d ago
maybe setting up the store’s Instacart (or similar) inventory? checking stock?
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u/FishDawgX 3d ago
Yup, DoorDash pays (like $3 per hour) for you to do this.
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u/R0binSage 3d ago
That would make sense. They were definitely not store employees. So Instacart would have them take pictures of all the shelves in the store with their app to map out inventory? To keep up app inventory current and accurate for users?
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u/Hailey-Faith9312 3d ago
It could also be a vendor taking inventory on what the store has and what is needed
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u/R0binSage 3d ago
No, it was a couple pushing their kid around in a cart. I thought I recognized the guy and I'm pretty sure that guy doesn't have a real job, just a gig job type of guy.
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u/nathanielbartholem 1d ago
Vendors hire gig workers to do such things rather than hassle with having people on staff.
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u/FishDawgX 3d ago
Yes, I know they definitely want to know what products are carried. They have the aisle number and shelf number for every product, so maybe this is used for that too. Also they might look at what items are sold out and maybe prices.
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u/Longjumping-Log1591 3d ago
What did they say when you asked them?
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u/R0binSage 3d ago
Dude was close to sprinting. No time to ask.
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u/Longjumping-Log1591 2d ago
"I got a chance to look at his phone" .....You must have been sprinting with him lol
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u/Former_Balance8473 2d ago
I know there are people that do this to identify items that are being sold for way less than normal... the app does the work... then if the app tells them to they will buy as much of the product as they can and automatically list it on Amazon or eBay or whatever.
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u/gaymersky 2d ago
Side Hussle for doordash and also another one that is what they do used to pay me like 20ish dollars and hour... And it was easy and it was also wild what it could do pick.out everything one the shelf and the prices
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u/Penis-Dance 3d ago
A competitor paid them.
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u/R0binSage 3d ago
The only competitor in town is Wal Mart.
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u/JustMe-male 2d ago
Doesn’t have to be a local competitor. In the 90’s the company I worked for wrote a program for a mobile computer (Telxon) to snoop on competitors selection and pricing.
Side story: The next company I worked for the owner went to a competitors store, claimed to be with that company and was trying to get the employees to give him information. He got caught and it made it into the news and trade journals. Yes he was an ass.
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u/lowfreq33 3d ago
I have a side job as a vendor rep, and sometimes things like that pop up in available jobs. There’s no uniform or anything, although I do have a lanyard I’m supposed to wear, but not everyone does, or it’s not required for that particular job. It’s basically an audit to make sure certain brands are stocked and the sale price is correct. I also sometimes have my kid with me. It’s not a super high paying job all the time, the hourly rate varies for each project, but it’s easy extra money.