Hobby Lobby Stores Inc, a chain of arts and crafts stores, is one of the Retail companies in the US. It was established as Hobby Lobby Creative Centers on August 3, 1972, and has its headquarters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., which was its first store. It was founded by David Green who is the current CEO.
It is a Christian-owned retail store. As such, it has Christian and American Conservative values entrenched in its practices. For example, it does not operate on Sundays, as this is given to staff to be with their family and worship God. Hobby Lobby is a private enterprise — its shares are not purchased or sold on a public stock exchange. The shares are owned, instead, by a few shareholders. The company has 969 stores in 47 states in the US; only Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont are exempted.
What are barcodes?
A barcode is a square or rectangular image which consists of a string of similar black lines and white spaces of differing widths. It is printed on a commodity and can be read by a machine. It is a means of encoding information on an item so that it is visible for a machine to read. It includes the information of products such as the weight, manufacturing date, expiry date, manufacturer’s name, country of the origin, and price.
Barcodes are of two types namely—1 dimensional (also known as 1D), 2 dimensional, or 2D (also known as QR code) – this stores more data than 1D.
Barcodes are used in invoices to assist during payments. The attendant at the cash counter will scan the tag of the product being bought with the barcode reader, after which the buyer would be requested to make payment.
Barcodes are also easy to get and save costs. It eliminates the huge cost of tracking items manually, as many workers are needed to do this. Moreover, it eliminates the problem of human errors, giving rise to accuracy and seamless operation. Furthermore, barcode scans are fast and reliable, and this ensures tracking is done rapidly.
Hobby Lobby doesn’t use barcodes, why?
Not only does Hobby Lobby not use barcodes for customers during checkout, but it also appears it does not have the intention of using the device. This is apparent in the company’s statement released in 2022, where the company said it doesn’t think scanners are good for the business.
As a result of not using barcodes, the checkout lines at Hobby Lobby are usually long and slower when compared to other retail stores, as items are scanned manually by staff.
The CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby, David Green, said not using barcodes is people-centered, as it agrees with the company’s policy of always putting people above everything else in the business.
In his book titled, More Than a Hobby, the CEO says barcode places computers above people. He said, “The computer won’t know if products are broken or stolen… It blithely goes on telling the staff they have such-and-such, when in fact they don’t.”
However, many people see this policy as outdated and backward and have reacted vehemently to it with theories. A typical example of the popular theories is that which establishes that the company’s owners have rejected the barcodes because they are conservative Christians who believe barcodes are a “mark of the beast.”
Generally, the disadvantages of not using barcodes at Hobby lobby far outweigh the advantages. The fact that barcodes are not used at the stores hampers operations in no small measure. In addition to the extremely slow lines at the counter, people can also easier swap tags on similar items and pay less.
Also, staff members have to go through the Herculean task of manually keeping counts of items at the stores to track inventory, and this can be tedious. In a way, it is also unfavorable to the customers the company supposedly intends to place above the machine (barcode scanners), as a customer would have to make a phone call ahead to get an inventory if he is not on the website or in one of the stores.
Hobby lobby does not leave its customers without a choice in making payment at the counter. It uses something called SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), which is the unique code retailers use to track the items in their inventory. They are peculiar to the retailer, so they are usually created after products are stocked. Hobby Lobby develops its SKUs but tracks the products manually instead of employing automatic scanners for keeping tabs on their flow through stores.
SKU is not a new invention, rather, it has been the way of operation before the introduction of automatic scanners. However, hobby lobby has incorporated some new ways of using the SKUs. For example, you can enter the code as well as the quantity of the product you intend to buy on the company website to order it quickly if you know the code.
Conclusion
The information above seeks to establish why hobby lobby doesn’t use barcodes and delineates barcodes as well as their uses. While the exact reason Hobby Lobby does not use barcodes for its operations is unknown, the information above expounds on the alternative that the company opted for in carrying out its business operations.
Why doesn’t hobby lobby use barcodes?
While some speculations have been given for this, the exact reasons hobby lobby doesn’t use barcodes is not known.
How does hobby lobby track items and inventory?
It employs manual pricing and the use of SKUs for the tracking process.
