The demise of QR codes has been greatly exaggerated. Certainly some implementations of QR codes have added little value to customers and rightly gained negative publicity. It’s a shame that the successful use of QR codes has not had the same amount of visibility.
At Retail Bulletin’s Multichannel conference on 1st February Schuh, Marks & Spencers and Halfords all said that QR codes was the most important technology for 2012. Tesco didn’t go quite as far but did see them as a key way to access information. The retailers liked QR codes because it was a stable technology, easy to use and didn’t cost much. All three said that no other current technology matched it.
Here is a good example from Halfords about how QR codes can add value. Go to the bulb section in Halfords and see how long it takes to identify the right bulb for your car. Alternatively use the Halfords app to scan the QR code in the bulbs section, put in your registration number and you get the correct bulb number. It also works for wipers, batteries and lot of other products.
We haven’t come across a retailer yet where we could not think of an innovative way to use QR codes. It’s not that hard when you think from customers point of view. QR codes are definitely not dead.
At Pierhouse we have been promoting the effective use of QR codes for over two years. If you still need to be convinced about QR codes or want to pick up some new ideas, visit the innovation pages on our website.