Clever Stuff

The shop’s central computers do much more than record all of the pricing information for all of the products. They also keep a record of how many products the shop has in stock. When an order arrives – 100 Kylie Minogue CDs, for example – they will all be recorded on the main computer. Every time someone buys one, the barcode is scanned and the computer records that one has been sold. This means that the people who own the shop know how many copies they are selling, how many they have left, and when they need to order some more. The computer can even tell them how quickly they are being sold. This means that if they see that all 100 Kylie CDs were sold in two days, they know to order more than 100 next time.

So you can see that barcodes, scanners and computers make shop owners lives a lot easier! Next time your at the checkout of a shop, watch the items being scanned and the price being displayed and think about all the clever work being done by the computers behind the scenes.