A New Name and New Scanners!

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Following their acquisition of Wal-Marts former locations, the Metro Group planned to make upgrades and changes to the estates of their new stores, including the checkout area.

During 2007, most of the former Wal-Mart stores will be transformed into real hypermarkets, a Metro Group subsidiary destined to soon become the leading self-service warehouse chain in Germany.

Upgrading the real checkouts involves adding 900 new highvolume in-counter scanners and 1,000 new hand-held scanners. Along side this major order is another for approximately 1,500 new hand-held scanners for existing real stores and Metro Extra Verbrauchermrkte.

Working with IBM Retail Store Solutions in Germany, real selected Metrologic as its scanner supplier of choice. While Metrologics flexibility and ability to deliver products on a tight schedule were important factors, the key reason behind reals decision to choose Metrologic was the bioptic in-counter StratosSTM and its competition-beating performance and bar code verification software. The  five-sided StratosS reads bar codes quickly and intelligently which allows it to easily read damaged or poor-quality bar codes. StratosS makes a checkout operators job easier, makes them more efficient and makes customer-transaction times faster all crucial benefits in a high-volume checkout environment like reals.

The hand-held choice for real was a simple one as Bernhard Wiegandt of IBM Retail Store Solutions explained, Teaming with Metrologics sales force in front of the customer was excellent. Also the price performance of their high-quality products is a huge advantage.

Real chose Metrologics Voyager hand-held scanner. Over two million Voyagers have been sold since its introduction in 2000, and its global track record is second to none. Great ergonomic design, scan performance and patented CodeGate technology for menu scanning make Voyager the clear leader in its class. Voyager was also selected for specialist areas around the store such as kiosks and counters because it can be attached to the StratosS and used as an auxiliary scanner for large or bulky items.

StratosS and Voyager provide a combined scanning solution to cover all of the Metro Groups present and future needs as it moves to make real a brand leader within the German retail marketplace. Metrologics best of breed range of data capture and collection devices are playing a pivotal role in the growth of this global retail organisation. Due to the success of the roll out, the introduction of StratosS has been expanded to include the real stores in Poland.