Barcodes on Black Friday
Here are some impressive numbers from Black Friday 2025.
- About 53.04 million people visited US retail stores. This was a 1.17% increase from 2024
- Sales volume was $11.7 to 11.8 billion, depending on the data source.
- Point-of-Sale activity grew 26% according to Shopify
The number of barcodes scanned is not recorded, but a reasonable estimate is as follows:
Of the 53 million people in retail stores, if each purchased 3-5 items (which is typical for Black Friday deals), then somewhere between 130 and 265 million barcodes were scanned in US stores alone. Globally, with 81.7 million in-store shoppers, that figure would be in the range of 250 to 400 million barcodes scanned.
Barcode Error Rates
Barcode error rates vary by establishment type and scanning system. Retail point-of-sale stores with modern scanners and decent labels typically see 0.2-0.5% no-read rates. No-reads in poorly controlled systems can spike from 1% to 3%
Therefore, between 1-2 million barcode problems would occur in typical retail conditions worldwide. Actual data is unavailable, and in the US at least, retailers strive to conceal it as a point of pride and to protect their investors.
These numbers are conservative. The actual number of bad barcodes could be much higher. So, what is the cost of poor barcodes? First, let’s identify the cost drivers:
- Checkout delays. A failed scan adds 10 to 20 seconds to the transaction. Given millions of errors, that’s tens of thousands of wasted labor hours. If 2 million errors take 15 seconds each, then 8,333 staff hours are spent dealing with bar barcodes. At $20/hour, that’s $166,000 in wasted labor. That’s just redundant scanning of a bad barcode.
- Manually keying in the numbers from an unscannable barcode takes even longer and adds significantly to the error rate. Incorrectly keyed PLUs and UPC numbers result in the item being priced incorrectly and the inventory system being incorrectly debited.
- Intangible costs could be much higher. Dissatisfied customers lead to lost sales through abandoned carts and loss of future business. At 0.1% abandonment of 250 million scans, that’s 250,000 items. At an average item value of $30, that’s $7.5 million of lost revenue.
The most common error, of course, would involve a UPC/EAN barcode at retail checkout. Even though the error rates appear to be almost infinitesimal, the dramatizations are considerable. For example, 200 million UPC scans x 0.3% failure = 600,000 rescans. At 15 seconds each, that’s 2,500 wasted hours of critical frontline staff, or about $50,000 in wasted labor costs.
Black Friday Barcode Failures
On Black Friday, barcode failures likely cost $6-14 million globally. In one day.
That’s the real money loss. The embarrassed customer whose checkout has been interrupted is only one dissatisfied customer. Those waiting in the queue are also frustrated, dissatisfied, and likely to think twice before returning to that store.
We are the first to acknowledge that barcode problems are a rarity. While we can rejoice in that, we must also recognize that when barcode problems occur, they are doubly unexpected and irritating. And what is probably the most unfortunate about it is that it is so easily and cheaply preventable. Simply care and check.
We can help you resolve and prevent barcode problems:
- super-fast barcode testing service
- emergency hotline assistance at Barcode-Test.com
- verifier sales and support
