From the desk of Austin: making a better batch scan mode

We’ve had a lot of  Profit Bandit users request that we improve the batch scan mode and I wanted to write to you guys in depth about what we’re working on and get any feedbackA performance rating on a scale of 1 to ... More you may have.

We have an initial prototype for an experimental feature that would allow you to scan as many or as few items as you like without searching or loading the data. When you finish scanning (and optionally entering buy costs as you scan) you would tap a ‘bulk scan button’ and return the data for all the items at once in a list similar to the ‘history’ or ‘buy list’ view.  For items with multiple items found, you’d see a ! indicator, which would prompt you to select the correct item from an item picker.

The hope would be that users would find interesting and helpful uses for a feature like this: some possibilities for using this feature are…

1. If you have a bad internet signal in a store, you could do all your scanning and then go somewhere where you have better signal. You could tap ‘bulk scan’ and get data back for ALL the items you’ve scanned. Then go back in and determine what to purchase. You would be able to load about 20 ASIN’s worth of data in the same time that it usually took you to load 1 ASIN. So 100 items should load in around 30 seconds (still needs testing).

2. You have internet, but you just have a pile of items to scan and want to do all your scanning first without breaking up your workflow waiting for each item to load and be examined for profitability, you would just scan scan scan (again optionally entering buy cost as you go if you desired)…then  when you’re done, you would load the data for everything you scanned all at once. The resulting list would be sorted and filtered for profitable items (based on ‘sourcing rules’ you set).

3. We hope to also add the ability to import ASIN’s in bulk from a file for inventory evaluation.

My hope going forward is to keep you all up to date with what we’re working on and get your feedback so we can all work together to build tools and features that are innovative and useful. A new Profit Bandit update will be out soon with various fixes as well as an in app way to collect feature requests and vote on suggestions called UserVoice: more on this later.

Let me know what you guys think!