Is barcoding expensive?
If you have to label goods, printing barcodes is slightly more expensive. The capital investment is in the scanners and the hand-held terminals, but the payback is very fast. Most companies have to close their stores in order to do a stocktake and the staff performing the stocktake are then paid at overtime rates (maybe even weekend rates). The time saved by using barcode scanners means that the costs are minimised and the accuracy increased.