A major problem for retailers is informing their customers of the price of product on sale.
Traditionally retailers have put the price of the products either on the product itself or on the shelf edge. Both these solutions lead to problems for the retailer. The price sticker peels off the product, the product is misplaced on the shelves or the shelf edge label does not align with the actual product. All leading to customer confusion.

The pricing of cards and stationary is a particular problem for the retailer.

Research has shown that when a customers confused about product pricing, they are unlikely to buy that product.

The retailer carries the pricing information in their back office system to allow the products to be scanned at the checkout. The product had to reflect price changes without the need for re-programming.

A prime requirement of the product was to provide dual pricing facilities. This was for a retailer who had stores in the UK and also in France. In the French stores the price had to be shown in French Francs and Pounds Sterling. This requirement was subsequently enhanced when the Euro was introduced and countries were obliged to show the prices in the local currency and also Euros.

George James provides two solutions. In the first solution the retailer provides George James with DOS based library access routines, these provide secure access to their back office database. These routines are then linked with the standard George James routines which provide the customer interface, that is the display and barcode scanner. This approach provides the retailer with a high comfort level and is particularly appropriate where there back office server is running proprietary software.

The second solution is where George James provides the server side software which access the customers product database. In this instance George James provides a turnkey solution. This approach is particularly appropriate where the retailer is using any ODBC compliant database such as Microsoft Access.

Both solutions allow for dual currency and the unit provides support for multiple language sets

The unit is configurable using predetermined barcodes.

The unit is based on a small footprint MS-DOS computer which allows flexibility in the design in terms of the shape of the units housing.

Most communication technologies are catered for, but the most commonly used are either the on board Ethernet port or RF based technology, for example 802.11b., provided using PCMCIA cards