Barcode scanners - can I buy my own and use it any store?

Question

Is it possible to buy a bar code scanner out of the box and use it to scan products at say, WalMart, and have it automatically pull up the correct product information?

If the answer is no, what if I wanted it to do so - is that possible? Why or why not?

Answer 1

I would say no. I worked at a retail store, and all the guns are networked to an in store central computer, which is networked with corporate.

You'd be surprised what they can tell you about products -- upcoming sales, prices, MSRP, what the store actually paid for the item, quantity in store, how many are on order... sometimes the nearest one if it's not in your store, etc etc. While the bar codes may be the same from product to product, each store indentifes them differently.

Plus it's not the gun itself which gives you the info, it's the home computer, which is hooked to that gun (wirelessly). The gun just gives the read out, it isn't smart enough to know stuff on its own. Hope that helps.