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Free Message Boards -> Kroger Employee Forum -> Why Kroger Sucks -> New App: PLU Finder (for cashiers and customers)
Post Info TOPIC: New App: PLU Finder (for cashiers and customers)
beej


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New App: PLU Finder (for cashiers and customers)
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Hello everybody and I am just writing this to mention a new app I have been writing for the past week. This app searches items and returns the PLU code for that item for those ones you can never remember. You can search by item or PLU #.

Img

 

Right now it's only on google play so here is the link: here. Note that it is still in beta and has a limited amount of items right now but I will be adding more. I would appreciate any feedback!

 



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Anonymous

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This is really neat, but I'm not sure PLUs are universal from division to division.

 

Still, good job!



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techelite


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Anonymous wrote:

 

This is really neat, but I'm not sure PLUs are universal from division to division.

 

Still, good job!

 

Generally, they actually will be universal. Kroger doesn't set the PLUs for produce; they just use ones that have already been assigned.

However, there are many other codes that may or may not be universal, including:

-bulk nutrition items such as nuts, trail mixes, etc.

-cut fruit items

-deli/bakery items

-FE misc sales items



-- Edited by techelite on Tuesday 5th of August 2014 11:45:03 AM

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NutritionWhore


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But the thing is, can this app help you find an item that you or the customer know zilch about.


I've had plenty of customers who pick up a vegetable not knowing what it is, going only by a picture that they have. And of course, I wouldn't know **** about it.


Same for the apples, too. An apple is an apple, sure. However, there are customers who pick up /any/ apple thinking they're all the same. Haha, that reminds me of whenever I search for an apple's sticker, and the customer proudly tells me that "it's an apple". No ****, sherlock, of course it's an apple.



Good job, though.

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FrontEnd Trooper


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NutritionWhore wrote:

But the thing is, can this app help you find an item that you or the customer know zilch about.


I've had plenty of customers who pick up a vegetable not knowing what it is, going only by a picture that they have. And of course, I wouldn't know **** about it.


Same for the apples, too. An apple is an apple, sure. However, there are customers who pick up /any/ apple thinking they're all the same. Haha, that reminds me of whenever I search for an apple's sticker, and the customer proudly tells me that "it's an apple". No ****, sherlock, of course it's an apple.



Good job, though.

 That's the worst. Mystery Fruit.

Often they'll say "it's 99 cents a pound," as if the book I'm looking through just has all the prices of everything and all I do is punch in the price. I try to mumble off something about "for inventory purposes" because I don't want to explain the concept of UPCs for them, or how ridiculous the "price" book they apparently imagine I'm looking in would be.



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BagBoy


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well the problem can be solved with the whole "mystery fruit" thing by the author adding images to the codes with search terms like "green, apple, light green" If you want to get hella interesting.... adding a "Find by picture" option could be amazing!

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beej


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Author here

Possible... yes...likely....no. Although that would be the dream for this app it's not exactly possible with the current setup. I'll try to explain: 

This app uses a text box as the output (where the search results are shown). Whenever you search it tells the text box to delete all the old text and replacr it with your results. And that's the problem.. it's a text box :p. I.e. no pictures. In order to be pictures I would have to completely re - write the output mechanism but I would consider that to be a long time goal. This first release is a total beta to see how many people use it. If it goes well I'm sure it will motivate me to do the pictures.

 

Hopefully I explained that well.



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Anonymous

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I think this app is really cool! I work in the deli in the Louisville division, and I could totally see myself using this app on a daily basis if you were to add in deli/bakery items (again--we'd have to find out if PLUs for non-produce items are universal). It would definitely be helpful too to put in the items that people often bring to the cash register that have no PLU marked on them--like salad bar, donuts, cups of coffee, etc. But this is a really neat idea, sometimes I've had to call people in our merchandising office to ask for PLUs for unusual items that aren't listed in the price book, and even they have trouble finding the PLUs most of the time. If you added in a lot more PLUs I would bet that somebody would be willing to pay you for this app, seriously.



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beej


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Thanks for the complement and it's kinda crazy but I work in Louisville too :). But believe it or not I'm a bagger.  I wasn't aware that deli items had PLUs. If you truly wanted it to happen I would need a list of items and their PLUs and it's as simple as adding one line of code (per item of course :p). I would truly appreciate anybody that can provide a list of items and it would really motivate me to keep this going.

I know this topic is dying down so if anybody wants to help me feel free to email me at contactbeej@gmail.com 

 

thanks



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Anonymous

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It's useful,  I suppose. Although I doubt the employees will be allowed to use their phones at work.

 

I work in the meat and seafood department, and we have over 1000 PLUs, but only use around 80 to 100 on a daily basis.

However, our scales do have a lookup function,  similar to this.

Unfortunately, this couldn't work for the meat and seafood departments, because,  for example, a ribeye steak has 2 different PLUs, one for if we sell it from our service case, and one for when we tray pack it at night. Not to mention,  if you search for "ribeye", you will get 25 different types, haha.



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BagBoy


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I've never created apps based on java before but I have created WoW addons. I understand when you say it's just a txt editor but i don't see it being THAT hard to make an editor based on HTML to stick the pictures in there :P



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beej


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The way java, and more specifically the android library, interprets HTML is a lot more complex than it probably should be. Trust me, if it was as easy as adding a HTML box in as a replacement for the text box than that's the method I would have chosen. But alas, java must make things more complicated.

Technicly speaking i'm already using HTML for the line breaks, but I could only make it so the text box interprets HTML commands based on text such as bold, italics, color, etc.

again though, it's defiantly not impossible, but until I see an actual demand for this app (more than 5 people :p) it becomes hard to invest an excessive ammount of time into adding improvements such as that. But who knows, I might get bored and try it out one day soon :p)

 

 

side note as a reply to the anonymous user, I would never make people pay for my apps, or at least this one. You work at kroger, you already suffer enough :p. I'm not going to make people sit through ads or pay for an app to help them do their job better. This app will always be free aswel as ad free.



-- Edited by beej on Wednesday 6th of August 2014 12:27:57 PM

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4hourrush


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That is an awesome idea. I don't think deli/bakery PLUs are universal though. Too bad, that would be really helpful.

For example here our cookie plu's are:
4975- M&M cookies
4985- chocolate chip cookies
4986- sugar cookies
4979- peanut butter cookies
4982- oatmeal raisin cookies
4984- double cc cookies

But again idk if that's the same for all stores or not.

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beej


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I'm going to take this list and compare to my store the next time I go in so stay tuned :p



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Anonymous

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i got as far as the plu app page but cant find plu finder?



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Anonymous

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im looking for deli meats and cheeses. i cant find your plu finder either?



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