Business & Personal Finance

Recently, I noticed a small black and white square at the bottom of an outdoor advertisement.   A caption underneath stated "Scan below with your smartphone for videos and more."  It looked similar to a barcode but different. 

These squares have increasingly appeared on print ads, billboards, in-store displays, event tickets, trade-shows, business cards, websites, coupons, e-mail, and more.

They are known as Quick Response codes and are two-dimensional barcodes that can be read by QR barcode readers and smartphones. The information encoded within the square can be very creative and may consist of text, URLs, videos or other data.

For example, Ubimark, an Indiana company, has published books that include QR codes.  Their new version of Around the World in 80 Days includes QR codes that provide readers with access to audio versions of chapters and to Google Maps. 

An article in USA today entitled "Smartphones turn bar code squares into sales tools" (dated 2/21/2011) by Anita Wadhwani states "tech experts believe the 2-D codes are on their way to becoming marketing and sales tools as ubiquitous as Facebook or texting and as familiar as they already are to people who live in Japan, Europe and, to a lesser extent, bigger U.S. cities."

A Scanbuy's survey found that "mobile bar code usage jumped 700% in 2010 compared with 2009, with a big uptick during the Christmas shopping season when big-box retailers such as Best Buy started adding the codes to their product packaging".  The QR codes are increasingly popular because they conveniently provide additional information about the product and/or service to the consumer.

QR codes likewise provide benefits to businesses.  Some large companies have created "back-end code management systems" that allow them to "keep tabs on who's using the bar codes."  Robert Russell, AT&T's Atlanta-based mobility product management marketing director, states "Every time a code gets scanned, it brings 20 to 30 different metrics associated with the consumer, from the type of operating system being used (in the phone) to other things a consumer has voluntarily decided to enter into the scanner's settings such as gender, age or other demographic information to create a user profile."

For small-business owners, QR codes are another tech savvy way to reach potential customers during difficult economic times.

To learn more about QR codes, visit the QRcode.com web site.  Click HERE to visit. 

For articles about QR codes and its growing importance to business, try the subject Quick response inventory system in the Business & Company Resource Center database.  An active Toronto Public Library card is needed for access.  Click HERE to begin your search.