INVISIBLE TECHNOLOGY

Every package in every store has it. We are so used to it that we barely notice it. Bar Code was invented by N. Joseph Woodland in 1949 and dominated retail market all over the world. The project started in 1948 after a request from retailer to find technology to encode information about his products and quickly became Woodlands obsession.

The idea he came up with was simple. Bar codes eliminated mistakes made by clerks manually tapping numbers onto register and made the work easier.

But not only simplicity decided about the success of the bar code. It had to reach critical mass of users. To avoid chaos a group of retailers and manufacturers chose to use the UPC, IBM’s barcode system developed by Woodland. The critical mass however was reached by cooperation with Wal-Mart stores and its growth.

Is there any technology today so simple that has a chance to rule the retail market as Woodland’s idea?

Over the past years we could see many new ideas around mobile payments. One of most interesting is Square - electronic payment service that allows users to accept credit cards through their mobile phones, either by swiping the card on the Square device or by manually entering the details on the phone. It also has an app that enables purchases by smartphone. The system uses the phone's GPS to detect client walked into a Square-enabled retailer. The store's checkout software automatically
connects with Square app on your phone.

Same as with bar codes the idea is simple and company tries to cooperate with big chains. Last month Starbucks started accepting Square payments in 7000 locations in US. The “only” problem is that nowadays there is no chance to build consortium that would accept the system and company needs to find the way to overcome the competition.

This raises the question: does any solution today have a chance to takeover payment system all over the world as effective as bar code idea without having a strong support or governing body?