That's probably because they have a very good read success rate - you definitely gets what you pays for in barcode readers!
Even the laser-based handheld thingies that they used to have in Safeway were a lot less reliable at reading the the fixed checkout ones.


From my experience with wand scanners, this sounds like a bad idea.
I do a market research thing where they get you to scan the barcodes on your shopping using a wand, and there's a significant number of times when it just won't read - even though it went through the checkout first time.
If it's so hit-and-miss for a sighted user, I think that would seriously limit its usefulness to a blind user?

The quality of the reader and the printing of the barcode are both important.