Cracking the code

摘要

Embrace technology or risk being left behind, tech experts and retail consultants have warned garden centres. Recent technological advances have shown how quickly garden centres can stand out from others as the place where visitors can: (1) instantlyfind the plant information they want; (2) rely on every member of staff to be highly informed; (3) find out about and order plants online beforehand using "click and collect"; and (4) share information about plants they like with friends, bringing more traffic to stores. QR codes are like barcodes that can be scanned by simply pointing a smartphone, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android, over the QR symbol. The phone should have a QR reader installed — these can be downloaded for free from the phone's app store. When the code is scanned, users are usually taken to a predefined web address, which means the customer receives more information than would be available through point of sale.