New Delhi, June 24 -- India's top retailers and marketplaces-Reliance Retail, Trent's Star Bazaar, and Amazon India-are piloting a new generation of QR codes on their private-label products to improve inventory management and cut losses, according to two industry executives familiar with the developments.

These two-dimensional barcodes carry far more information than traditional one-dimensional barcodes, such as batch numbers, expiry dates, pricing data, and other product attributes. Current barcodes typically store only basic product identification information.

The added visibility is expected to help retailers better manage ageing inventory, improve replenishment, and reduce losses arising from expired stock and pricing mismatches, th...