Almost every industry is employing barcodes for automating their product information storage and retrieval purposes. Following are some of the general application areas of barcodes.
· Whole sale dealers and retail shop owners make use of barcodes for product identification.
· Medical and surgical industry places barcodes on medicine, surgical equipment and diagnosis machinery.
· Shipping and marine industry make use of barcodes for secure shipment and product information.
· Electronic and computer industry employ barcodes on electronic devices and hardware components.
· Postal industries use barcodes for efficient parcel routing and mail delivery across the board.
Apart from the above mentioned applications, there are hundreds of other areas where barcodes are being widely and successfully used.
In the next chapter we are going to explain what are the two major categories of barcodes and how they differ from each other, pros and cons of both and finally the usage of both barcodes.