Mobile barcodes continue march towards mass adoption

Using 2D barcodes as virtual loyalty cards that offer rewards is  a significant investment for large retailers, who must invest in special equipment to read the barcodes on a customer’s cell phone at the point of sale.

One sign of the mobile barcode’s growing popularity, however, is Target’s willingness to get in the game, installing thousands of barcode scanners across the U.S.

They will initially be used to allow customers to update Target GiftCards — instead of needing to bring the GiftCard to the store, a customer can point their mobile browser at the Target mobile site, which displays a barcode that then gets linked to the card. At the point-of-sale in the store, the scanner will read this barcode and update the GiftCard’s value.

To my mind, the above process still sounds clunky…I’m not sure I would bother, I’d rather just bring in the physical GiftCard. When you can buy a Target GiftCard and immediately receive a mobile barcode without having to do anything else — that’s when I’d probably start getting involved.

Still, just the fact that Target is investing in this kind of technology is a sign that mobile barcodes are growing in popularity and that retailers are willing to invest in their evolution. As you’ll read in the cover story of our past issue of COLLOQUY, called “Transformers,” mobile payment and mobile loyalty technology is poised to boom over the next few years — but it remains to be seen which technology, barcode or otherwise, reigns supreme.

Target clearly wants to be seen as an early mover in the mobile technology game, with new technologies that are innovative and relevant to consumers. I’m interested in watching to see how customers participate in these offerings and how Target follows through.