If you’re looking for a better way to track your assets, three technologies dominate the conversation: barcodes, QR codes, and RFID tags. Barcodes have led the way since 1974, when Wrigley’s Gum became the first product scanned at checkout. Retailers have relied on barcodes ever since. They’re quick, accurate, and inexpensive, and they leave little room for human error.
But barcodes have a real limitation: they can’t hold much information. Over the past decade, newer technologies emerged that encode far more data. The shift accelerated in 2003, when Walmart required all its suppliers to adopt RFID tagging.
Even so, most organizations still consider barcodes the most practical way to track your assets. So where does that leave QR codes and RFID? Here’s a closer look at each option, and what to consider when choosing the right way to manage your inventory.
Barcodes: The Original Way to Track Inventory
A barcode is a set of vertical lines and a scannable sequence of letters and numbers. When you scan the barcode, the system returns that sequence, which triggers a lookup in your point-of-sale or inventory management system.
Retailers use barcodes most often, but libraries, hospitals, and time-clock systems rely on them too. Barcodes let you identify an item quickly while keeping inventory and sales data accurate.
Barcodes have stuck around for over 50 years for good reason. They’re fast, accurate, and cheap. They generate little paper waste, and they cut labor costs by reducing manual entry. On the downside, printing and applying labels takes time, and you’ll need to invest in scanners or readers to use them.
Barcode technology keeps evolving, too. Some manufacturers are now developing near-invisible microparticle tags to fight counterfeiting — tags built from materials durable enough to survive extreme conditions and nearly impossible to remove. Industries with high counterfeiting risk are watching this space closely.
QR Codes: More Data for Your Assets
A QR code is a type of barcode, but it encodes data in two directions instead of one — left to right and up and down. That extra dimension means a QR code can hold far more information than a standard barcode, including text, URLs, SMS messages, or a virtual business card.
Manufacturers use QR codes heavily to track vehicles and products through production. Most consumers, though, know QR codes from marketing: point your phone’s camera at one, and you land on a promotion or extra product info.
QR codes have real advantages. They’re versatile, trackable for analytics, and free to generate. Adoption has changed dramatically in recent years, too — roughly two-thirds of consumers report scanning a QR code in the past year, and inventory management has become one of the fastest-growing use cases for the technology.
The applications keep expanding. Mercedes-Benz Canada, for example, places QR codes on vehicles to give rescue teams instant access to structural information — the location of airbags, batteries, and fuel tanks — which can speed up response time after a crash.
RFID Tags: Wireless Tracking at Scale
RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, reads and captures information through radio waves instead of a visual scan. The system needs just two components: a tag (or transponder) and a reader that communicates with it.
Industries use RFID everywhere, from mobile payments and healthcare to retail, amusement parks, and car rentals. You’ve likely encountered it in retail theft prevention — cashiers deactivate tags before you walk past the sensors at the door. Organizations also use RFID tags to track animals, unlock secured doors, collect tolls electronically, and monitor shipping containers, machinery, and railroad cars.
RFID’s biggest advantage is scale: a single reader can communicate with multiple tags at once, without needing a direct line of sight. RFID tags are small, durable, and tough enough to withstand damage. That said, RFID comes with tradeoffs. Because any nearby reader can pick up the signal, RFID can pose security risks, and someone could remove a tag to bypass a security system. High startup costs remain the most commonly cited downside.
RFID’s applications keep growing regardless. The NFL began tagging players’ shoulder pads with RFID chips in 2014 to track speed, distance, and movement patterns — a move that opened the door for sports analytics as we know it today. Major retailers continue testing RFID’s expanded capabilities, and researchers are even experimenting with implantable RFID tags for uses ranging from secure building access to payment.
How to Track Your Assets: Choosing the Right Technology
Most organizations aren’t moving away from barcodes and QR codes anytime soon, especially smaller teams without the budget for RFID’s higher startup costs. That said, RFID is becoming more viable in manufacturing and retail as prices come down and its advantages in speed and security become harder to ignore.
The right choice often depends less on the technology itself and more on how well your equipment reservation and inventory management software supports it. Whether you’re scanning barcodes at checkout, using QR codes to speed up patron self-service, or exploring RFID tags for high-volume tracking, your system should make it simple to track your assets — for both your team and the people borrowing your gear. WebCheckout’s Patron Portal is built to streamline exactly that kind of day-to-day tracking and checkout process for higher education and media organizations alike.
Talk to our team to see how the right technology, paired with the right software, can make it easier to track your assets and simplify inventory management.