Convenience stores are traditionally small shops that sell items such as sweets, soft drinks, lottery tickets, tobacco products, newspapers and magazines and a limited selection of groceries. These stores are often combined with a gas (or petrol) station positioned in busy areas, allowing people to stop quickly for items. To serve these ‘on the go' customers, it is important for convenience stores to utilize bar code scanning technology to maintain their "convenient" advantage over drug stores or supermarkets, while increasing transaction times and gathering accurate item-level sales information to drive inventory systems (to reduce the occurrence of out-of-stock items).
In addition to fast service, convenience stores must be equipped with reliable bar code readers maximizing front-end productivity with quick read rates, especially when reading small, damaged or other hard-to-read labels like those with frost or condensation on the code. To work around space constraints at the checkout counter, convenience stores also require a scanning solution with small footprint to eliminate duplicate equipment whenever possible. Other challenges, like continual employee training, due to high turnover, can be eased by bar code readers with more intuitive features.

	POS Checkout Convenience stores are typically characterized by a single station checkout model. With a relatively few number of smaller sized items in their transaction, customers do not typically use shopping carts, but simply place their items on the counter beside the POS terminal. Customers often make additional ‘impulse buy' purchases at the checkout consisting of high-margin items such as gum or candy. This makes it important for the selected scanner to minimize the amount of valuable counter space it occupies. In most cases, an on-counter presentation scanner will meet the transaction demands of most convenience stores. These scanners enhance first pass read rates and promote the cashier's natural tendency to pick up and ‘present' the items to the scanner. It is important for the presentation scanner to have omnidirectional reading capabilities, allowing the operator to read bar codes at any angle for the best ergonomics. If the store sells heavier or bulkier items, a handheld scanner should be used to scan the items without picking them up. For heavier transaction volumes and customer frequency, an on-counter or in-counter single plane scanner is ideal.
	Mobile Marketing At the forefront of consumer trends, convenience stores have already jumped into mobile marketing, or the use of a mobile device (cell phone, PDA or smart phone) as a new means of marketing communication, promotion or advertising. This new form of marketing opens two-way communication channels for retailers to directly engage and build trusted relationships with customers faster, better and with fewer costs than ever before. In order to implement such programs, businesses must be equipped with bar code scanners capable of reading directly from a mobile device's highly reflective screen. Imaging-based bar code scanners are required to read mobile bar codes with the best performance.
	Identity / Age Verification Convenience stores selling regulated goods such as alcohol, lottery tickets and tobacco must follow government requirements to verify a customer's age and identity. To comply with these laws, retailers typically instruct employees to inspect the customer's identification (ID) card. Datalogic offers Driver License Parsing capabilities to allow the cashier to automatically verify customer eligibility through a one-step process. By using this technology, retailers can reduce the chances of selling regulated goods to ineligible customers.
	Form Automation The extracted data from government issued ID cards can also be used to auto-populate customer application forms for credit cards, loyalty programs, product returns, licenses and more. By simplifying these applications, businesses can improve customer participation while adding the potential to capture additional customer data for marketing purposes. Capturing the customer's information at the source also ensures accurate records and the highest level of data integrity.
	Counterfeit Detection / Authenticity Verification Datalogic ADC offers a unique base station equipped with a ‘Counterfeit Detector' enabling employees to quickly verify the authenticity of currency and other documents such as customer IDs for regulated goods. Using UV fluorescent emissions, the base station highlights special fluorescent ink markings on the item designed to indicate authenticity. This special feature is easy to use and provides additional savings by eliminating separate ‘verification-only' equipment.
	EAS Deactivation For high-priced or commonly shoplifted items, retailers can utilize Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) tags to prevent unnecessary shrink / loss; yet implementing these tags requires a solution for quick and easy tag deactivation. Datalogic ADC's bar code scanners are capable of supporting Sensormatic or Checkpoint tags. Deactivation occurs automatically when the item is passed over the scanner. Datalogic additionally prevents the tag from deactivating until there is a good-read from the bar code label, allowing for proper deactivation and only catching truly active tags at exit points.
	Inventory Management Using mobile computers or bar code scanners, retailers can create a cost-saving inventory management system. By scanning each item's bar code label in the back room, in-store and at the checkout, businesses can automatically track items while updating inventory levels. This allows appropriate reorder points for optimal inventory practices to be set. Keeping an accurate and reliable inventory database also allows for better forecasting, reducing the chance of stock-outs, overstocks and emergency shipments.

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