In 1967, with the railway system maturing, Collins went to management looking for funding for a project to develop a black-and-white version of the code for other industries. They declined, saying that the railway project was large enough and they saw no need to branch out so quickly. Collins then quit Sylvania and formed Computer Identics Corporation. Computer Identics started working with helium-neon lasers in place of light bulbs, scanning with a mirror to locate the barcode labels anywhere up to several feet in front of the scanner. This made the entire process much simpler and more reliable, as well as allowing it to deal with damaged labels by reading the intact portions.

Barcodes labelsincluding the UPC labels have become a ubiquitous element of modern civilization, as evidenced by their enthusiastic adoption by stores around the world; almost every item other than fresh produce from a grocery store, department store, and mass merchandiser has a UPC barcode on it. This helps track items and also reduces instances of shoplifting involving price tag swapping, although shoplifters can now print their own barcodes. In addition, retail chain membership cards (issued mostly by grocery stores and specialty "big box" retail stores such as sporting equipment, office supply, or pet stores) use bar codes to uniquely identify consumers, allowing for customized marketing and greater understanding of individual consumer shopping patterns. At the point of sale, shoppers can get product discounts or special marketing offers through the address or e-mail address provided at registration..

Barcodes can allow for the organization of large amounts of data. Users can get the data through scanning the barcode labels. They are widely used in the healthcare and hospital settings, ranging from patient identification (to access patient data, including medical history, drug allergies, etc.) to medication management. They are also used to facilitate the separation and indexing of documents that have been imaged in batch scanning applications, track the organization of species in biology,[13] and integrate with in-motion check weighers to identify the item being weighed in a conveyor line for data collection.