Assisted identification of ambiguously marked objects

A method of operating a checkout system with exception handling, the method comprising:

• monitoring real-time locations of a plurality of portable devices within a structure housing an inventory;
• capturing, with a scanning device, at least one image of an object having at least one indicia;
• retrieving an associated price from a store database server and entering the associated price in a transaction record responsive to a successful decoding of the at least one indicia by the scanning device;
• and
• resolving an exception comprising a failure to obtain the associated price based on the first indicia by:
• transmitting a price check request, via a network, to at least one portable device selected from among the plurality of portable devices located within the structure housing the inventory based on predetermined criteria for locating an inventory storage location of the object within the structure, wherein the predetermined criteria include a determination of a closest portable device from among the plurality of portable devices relative to an estimated inventory storage location of the object within the structure, and wherein the price check request includes the at least one image or a new image of the object;
• and
• entering a resolved price corresponding to the object into the transaction record responsive to receiving a response to the price check request from the at least one portable device via the network.

An exception handling server for a checkout system, the exception handling server is configured to:

• monitor real-time locations of multiple portable devices within a structure housing inventory;
• determine an occurrence of an exception comprising a failure to obtain the price of the based on an indicia on a first item scanned by a scanning device;
• receive at least one image of a first object captured by the scanning device;
• use visual image recognition of the at least one image to identify the first object based on learned correlations of images of objects to inventory storage locations at which objects are stored within the inventory storage;
• identify an estimated inventory storage location in an inventory storage at which the first object was stored;
• transmit a price check request including the at least one image and an indication of the estimated inventory storage location to at least one portable device of the multiple portable devices that is selected based, at least in part, on its current proximity to the estimated inventory storage location;
• receive the price for the first object from the at least one portable device responding to the price check request;
• transmit the price to the scanning device or a point of sale system in response to the first price check request following receipt of the price.