In the dynamic landscape of supermarket shopping, the challenge of managing expiring products efficiently has long plagued both consumers and retailers alike. The traditional approach of relabelling items with discount stickers as their expiration date approaches often proves to be a cumbersome and error-prone process for supermarket staff. However, three innovative graduate students from the National Taipei University of Technology have stepped up to the plate with a game-changing solution.
Their brainchild, aptly named Barcodiscount, has garnered significant recognition, earning the prestigious national runner-up spot in this year’s Dyson Awards. At its core, Barcodiscount introduces a revolutionary concept: colour-changing stickers that seamlessly adjust their displayed discounts in real-time as the expiration date of a product draws nearer.
Picture this scenario: a packet of meat sits on the shelf, its expiration date looming on the horizon. With Barcodiscount as the meat approaches 48 hours from expiration, the label will change to 20% discount. When it reaches 24 hours, the label undergoes a transformation to a 40% discount.
This innovative approach not only alleviates the burden on supermarket staff by eliminating the need for manual relabelling but also ensures that consumers are presented with accurate and enticing discounts tailored to the precise freshness of the product. With Barcodiscount, the days of laborious discount adjustments and potential pricing errors are a thing of the past, ushering in a new era of efficiency and convenience in the realm of grocery shopping.
Written by Shonchari Shefrin Subha