Stop & Shop is testing 1,000 wireless computers-equipped carts to allow customers to e-mail their grocery list to the store and call it up on their cart‚Äö√Ñ√∂‚àö√ë‚àö¥s screen.
The “Shopping Buddy” also lists what shoppers bought on their last trip, notifies them a product is on sale as they enter the aisle, creates personalized coupons as they approach an item and allows customers to place a deli order and get a message when it‚Äö√Ñ√∂‚àö√ë‚àö¥s ready.
In the future, these smart carts would provide personal shopping assistance as: meal planning, sorted by such things as category, favorites, diet type, or preparation time, with supporting content such as health notes, wine information, consumer ratings and gift suggestions, etc.
Ultimately, shoppers will also be able to pay at the cart.
IBM, which is creating the carts‚Äö√Ñ√∂‚àö√ë‚àö¥ computers, forecasts that they might cost something between $2,000 and $3,000. Regular old supermarket carts cost about $100 each.
Via The Raw Feed < Sea Coast Online.
Further details in IBM Press Release.
Another “shop with Big Brother” experience is proposed by Japanese company NTT Software which will launch in December a sales promotion system for retailers called “One to One History Analysis / RFID tag solution”.
The stores must first attach RFID tags to products and shelves so that smart shopping baskets with built-in RFID readers can decode them.
When a shopper puts a product in her/his basket, the basket reads the tag and sends its data to a server for shopping history analysis. As the shopper walks around the store, the basket’s reader decodes shelves tags and sends the location to the server which in turn retrieves a list of products on a nearby shelf, and another lists of the products already in the basket, to guess what the shopper might be looking for, and notifies it.
NTT Software’s technology expert says “Thanks to the smart baskets’ location recognition capability. The system can not only recommend related products but also promotion items of each area in a store. It can refer to individual shoppers’ shopping histories and recommend products that match their preferences.”
Via RFID in Japan.
Realted posts. Alberto’s High-tech grocery shopping, and Howard’s “Magellan,” The Big Brother Shopping Cart.
