This little trick just made going through Walmart self-checkout so much easier. At least, that’s what this TikTok user says.
Love it or hate it, self-checkout is something you’ll likely encounter in your day-to-day shopping. The thing is, because you’re not an employee who’s well-versed in scanning items and getting through them quickly, you might run into some trouble.
You keep scanning an item, and no matter how close or far from the barcode you are, it just won’t go through. Or it goes through, but now you’re getting charged four times for one item.
It’s frustrating, to say the least, especially when you have multiple items to get through and none want to scan correctly.
In comes Walmart with an innovative solution.
How is Walmart improving checkout?
In a trending video just a few views shy of 200,000, Walmart shopper @sushiissogoodomg made a very practical discovery.
“Omg guys, you can literally just scan the item anywhere, and it’ll go through,” @sushiissogoodomg said in the text overlay.
In the clip, the TikToker points the scanning device at the front of a Great Value (Walmart’s generic brand) graham cracker box, and the item pops up on the self-checkout machine.
Unsure if it was a fluke—since she just pointed it at a random spot on the box instead of the barcode—she tried again with a chocolate bar. Again, the item is easily scanned.
Commenters had several theories about why this worked.
One person said that this only works with the Walmart brand items, while another added that Great Value’s new packaging has hidden barcodes.
And they’re right.
Back in 2019, a whole five years ago, Walmart started its partnership with Digimarc to roll out Digimarc Barcodes on its private label brand items, Labels & Labeling reported.
A Digimarc Barcode is an invisible (at least to the human eye) barcode that can be printed all over an item. It can be detected by barcode scanners, phones, and computers.
Why would you need an invisible barcode?
Digimarc created this technology to enhance the checkout process across industries.
Instead of having to hunt for a barcode or having to scan it at just the right angle, the cashier or customer can point the scanner at any part of the item and have it show up. It can even pick up on more than one item at a time.
This is supposed to make the checkout process quicker and less frustrating for workers and customers.
And it seems like Walmart has been happy with the partnership. Three years after the retailer first started working with Digimarc, it announced an additional multi-year (and multimillion-dollar) contract, according to a news release.
“Walmart is a forward-thinking technology leader with an unwavering focus on customer experience. We are thrilled to expand our partnership with them and look forward to sharing more details about this expansion in the coming months,” said Riley McCormack, Digimarc CEO, in the news release.
And it seems the company is only growing, based on its 2024 revenue increase. While the company’s success can’t be attributed solely to Walmart, it is safe to say that when a retail giant like that implements your product, other big brands take notice.
Major grocery retailer Wegmans was also an early adopter of the invisible barcode.
However, with how shocked customers are when someone discovers and posts about this every few years online (a similar video went viral two years ago), it seems no one is doing a great job of advertising this new feature.
Employees may have been made aware of it, but the feature hasn’t been widely communicated to customers yet.
@sushiissogoodomg And walmart still doesnt have tap to pay 🙄 #fyp #viral #relatable #greatvalue ♬ original sound – sushiissogoodomg
Commenter reactions
While some shoppers were impressed, others said that what they really want is for Walmart to implement tap-to-pay. The retailer does have some tap-to-pay options but does not accept the widely popular Apple Pay—likely to promote its own tech, Walmart Pay, SaasAnt reported.
The Daily Dot reached out to TikToker @sushiissogoodomg for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Walmart via email.
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