Smartphone apps may help retail scanning catch on

In 2003, it seemed like the shopping technology of the future: portable computers that could scan bar codes and let customers ring up purchases as they strolled through supermarket aisles, without having to wait for a cashier to check it all out at the end.

Surely, millions of Americans would soon be shopping that way.

Not quite. Nearly nine years later, the supermarket chain Stop & Shop remains the only major US retailer whose customers can use the hand-held scanners, which were designed by Modiv Media Inc. But the Quincy company says the surging popularity of smartphones could now make the concept more practical for retailers.

About one in three Americans owns a smartphone, according to the market research firm comScore Inc. So retailers need not buy expensive hand-held scanners; they can ask customers to install an app on their digital devices.

“Your shoppers, in effect, are paying the cost of the hand-helds,’’ said John Caron, Modiv’s senior vice president of marketing.

Modiv has converted its system to apps that let customers scan bar codes with their smartphones.

A Boston-based rival, AisleBuyer LLC, offers a similar technology that is being used by the toy retailer Magic Beans.

And Apple Inc. offers an app that lets shoppers at its retail stores scan and buy products with their iPhones.

“I think that the concept of scanning while you shop will de facto become reality everywhere’’ as more apps become available, said John Stanton, professor of food marketing at St. Joseph University in Philadelphia.

Such apps could not only ring up purchases but deliver discount coupons, display shopping lists, and let users tell friends what foods they are buying.

Since 2003, the Dutch supermarket giant Ahold has installed Modiv Media’s scan-it-yourself technology in about 350 of its Stop & Shop and Giant stores in the United States. Many consumers have embraced the system; Stop & Shop spokeswoman Suzi Robinson said the service handles about one million transactions per month.

Most other supermarket chains have balked at the price, however, since each hand-held scanner can cost up to $600.

“It can easily be $60,000 to $80,000 per store,’’ Caron said. That’s why the apps are generating interest; smartphones reduces the cost to the retailer by about 90 percent, he said.

Modiv Media has introduced smartphone scanning at about 50 Stop and Shop stores. The company’s Scan It! Mobile app is free and available for Apple Inc. iPhones and for smartphones that use Google Inc.’s Android software.