Magazines

[questworld]

I have a comic book and game store, i need to figure out a way to make the
RMS read the rest of the bar code that gives the issue number of the magazine
since evey issue has the same code i need to be able to tell form issue 1 and
issue 2 by scanning it.

 

[Jason]

I'm not sure about reading the barcode... What kind of barcode does it have
for the issue number? Is it a second barcode? Does you scanner read it?

You do have a couple of other options either way.

1) You can use a lot matrix item where you set up the barcode as the LM item
and under it have all of the issue numbers. Each issue will have an ILC that
your make up. When a new issue comes out, you add it as member of the
matrix. When the common barcode is scanned, the cashier will need to select
the issue number.

2) Use your own ILCs and print new barcodes for each volume. Place the new
barcodes over the pre-printed ones.

Neither of these are real good solutions, so hopefully you will get a more
educated answer from someone with a little more experience with
magazines/books.

 

[Glenn Adams [MVP - Retail Mgmt]]

IF your books include a 2 or 5 digit "supplement" to the UPC, you can
program your scanner to read them. Bad News - you're going to need to
update all of your SKUS to include the supplement in RMS. More Bad News
- if you get better than 75% scan rate on the supplements, you'll be
doing better than I could. An omni-directional scanner (it has multiple
lines in a grid pattern) is better than a line scanner, but you still
get a lot of misses on the supplement.

The manual that came with your scanner should have programming
instruction, or contact your reseller or the manufacturer for more info
on your hardware.

It seems like some publisher's books scan better than others - I think
it may have to do with the quality of the paper or inks they use, but
that's just a guess...

If you find a scanner that reads from comic books with supplements
reliably, please let me know!

By the way, if you set the scanner to REQUIRE supplements, you will get
a much better read rate, but you would need a separate scanner to read
items that DON'T have a supplement - like toys...

Glenn Adams
Tiber Creek Consulting
http://www.tibercreek.com
(e-mail address removed)