High Tech Shopping Carts Offer Discounts, Ads

An anonymous reader writes "'Imagine walking down a supermarket aisle and hearing a chime as you pass the peanut butter letting you know it's on sale. Or picture reading the local five-day weather forecast, checking the Dow Jones industrial average and finding a new chicken and rice recipe, all from your shopping basket. Souped up with a computer attachment, your shopping cart could become a know-it-all that gives you special discounts based on what you buy or provides news and information as you sail through grocery aisles.' Full story here, and the Cart manufacturer's site here. I might just have to warshop in Moraga today..."

Comments

Re:Nagging shopping carts

[Midwedge]

Yeah I can see that this has the potential of being a pain (advertisements constantly playing, like the TV's at Walmart)... Yet I can see some really useful applications.

How about a built in scanner so you can see how much something costs or keep track of how much you are spending?

Or a guide function showing you where a product is.

Potentially embarassing

[PurpleHigh]

What happens when those chimes start lighting up near embarassing items that sometimes need to be purchased? Or you look around, and everyone is staring at your cart while it announces discounts on Preparation H?

Re:the real reason

[s.a.m]

Actually my company had this idea a year and a half ago. We talked with American Express to team up with them about it. The idea was excellent and in fact we had the basic concept mapped out. Problem with it was we had no funding and resources to do this.

The president and I sat down and worked out the simple logic for it and basically we really don't care what each individual was buying. Our software would determine that and we'd get trends etc, but no one person would ever know what an individual would buy. Unless you specifically asked to see that person's buying habbits.

Oops, pardon me, my bad, excuse me, coming through

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

At the Kroger grocery store nearest to my home, when they opened, they had LCD panels attached to the grocery carts with a roughly 11" diagonal screen.

There were some sort of sensors on the top of the panel (IR maybe?) that would receive information from transmitters suspended from the ceiling in each aisle.

The carts would let you know which items were on sale in that aisle, could provide a map of the store or direct you to specific items that you were searching for.

The big problem was that everyone who brought their kids shopping let their kids push the carts so they could play with the displays, and the kids wouldn't watch where they were going (some of the adults didn't, either!) and so they would constantly be running into each other, knocking into displays in the aisles, etc.

After about 3 months, they gave up and removed all the displays from the carts and I've been able to shop safely without worrying about someone ramming a cart into my achilles tendons every few minutes...

I personally don't miss them and I'm glad to see them gone.

But how long will they last?

[seafoodbuffet]

From an earlier article on Wifi Triangulation being used for this purpose, I recall my first impression being, "Yeah right, these things can't last". Seriously, the shopping carts at my local supermarket are already pretty beaten up and they were designed to be fairly robust. Add in some fragile electronics, an 802.11 antenna, and some batteries, I doubt this stuff will endure weather and rough treatment for very long. How can this be feasible for stores unless they plan to spend a fortune maintaining these things?

You're wrong

[mookoz]

I've been using the Symbol Tech PSS system at my grocery store on a test basis.

http://www.symbol.com/products/consumer_systems/co nsumer_pss_ls.html

First of all, who actually does grocery shopping thinking "okay I'm only going to spend $20 today". If you need stuff, you need stuff. The scanner has made me more comfortable shopping, at least I know what the bill will be before I get to the checkout.

Secondly, if you DO go shopping with a fixed amount like that, I think the scanner is more useful knowing how close you are to your total, instead of being surprised at the checkout and then having to ask the cashier to take stuff back. Not a pleasant moment for either party.

Symbol's website claims that people spend *more* when they know what their accurate running total is, since they can get closer without running over. I think they might be closer to right than you are.

Re:Are they serious?

[krinsh]

Since its double coupon day, I'd say that this is my $0.04.

It is always double coupon day at my local Martin's.

Seriously, I suspect - and I'm making a HUGE generalization here about /.ers - that we embrace the tech itself - wi-fi/802.11b tablets connected to shopping carts are a cool idea. In fact; haven't there been tiny video screens or something like those "shifting picture" ads been attached to carts before?

I believe the negative reaction is the commericialism - the feeding of ads to you - and the data collection this sort of device may provide to 'corporate overlords'. There is a strong anti-capitalism trend (did I say that?) - and that is ONLY my opinion - and it manifests itself against anything that could remotely be seen as government or corporate meddling in privacy or personal data.

I can't fault anyone for that at all.

BUT -- I want coupons for my favorite foods and I elect to have these things provided to me - just like I tell the clerk in the electronics section that I'll come get them when I'm ready to ask questions; pester me before then and I'll leave. If I don't want to be bothered; I don't use the card or I don't click to get the free sample. If you can elect to use the device or not; then I see no problem with it - if you must use it to shop then I see the store adopting them closing down very quickly because even people that want such 'amenties' don't often want them shoved down their throats.

I hope I got all that right and no one sanctimoniously corrects me this time.

Re:Practical use!!!

[program21]

I used to work at a supermarket where it was all too easy to get away with something like that.
There were coupons codes (4 digit, the bar code was 00000 0xxxx) for things like a BOGO shrimp ($12.99), free 1st birthday cake ($18), and so on. Plus there were lots of little ones, nothing as significant as that though, but they were sequential. One could make a night out of trying groups of codes, and in fact a few of us did.
The funny part was that the system never checked to see if you actually had bought (rather, were buying) the item that the coupon was good for, and would take off the amount anyway.

After I left, the store replaced it's backend system as part of a routine upgrade, and there were stricter controls over that, and also ways to be alerted when something odd was going on, so while it worked then, it's much harder to get away with now, at least for employees. I'm sure that any of us, as customers, could work something like that at another store where the cashiers have no idea.

For those who don't know, BOGO = Buy One Get One, as in by one, get one free.

Re:Practical use!!!

[tomhudson]

The system they use is that, for some bar codes, the first digits identify it as a bottle refund, and the last 4 digits are the amount of the refund. Really brain-dead system - not even a checksum.

And, no, I'm not going to identify the stores involved. Hint: They're located in Canada.

Re:Killer App: Shopping list display on cart:

[dcavanaugh]

Beaming your shopping list from a PDA is a cool idea, but the stores really don't want you thinking too much about your list. They would prefer you spend the time walking past as much stuff as possible. The brands with the best margins are positioned at eye-level, with the hope of you going off-list and buying stuff impulsively.

I consistently spend less when I shop than when my wife does, even though she prepares the list either way. If it's not on the list, it's not in the cart. I also do the math, so that coupons for expensive brands are used only when the actual price beats the store brand.

The grocery store is filled with opportunities to make sub-optimal buying decisions -- two of my favorites:

1. "Decoy" items that look exactly like the items on sale, to be sold at high prices when the "real" sale items run out.
2. "Sales" where the price is just the regular price (except advertised prominently, so as to look like a bargain).
3. Scanner "errors" that consistently favor the store -- this happens ALOT, and the pattern of error is PREDICTABLE

You will never see the stores provide any technology that helps you evaluate prices. If they had their way, the only price you would get is a total for the entire cart!

Robot Cashiers...

[ronfar]

Yesterday, I had an unsettling experience. I was in Kash and Karry shopping, buying eggnog etc. (Only a few noggy weeks before the government takes it away again.) Finally, I got to the Kash register, only to note that even though the sign said it was open, there was nobody there. I figured out that it was a robot cashier. I took my eggnog, and ran it past the scanner. A cheery female voice anounced the price, and told me to put the item on the belt, which had started moving. I did the same thing with the rest of my purchases. The I pushed the red box on the touchscreen, selected cash and put my $20.00 in the slot. The machine, then cheerily dispensed my change "Don't forget to look below the scanner for bills." I bagged up my groceries and went on my merry way without having to speak to another living soul.

Now, I'm not sure why this was unsettling. Maybe because I used to do cashier work, or maybe because the store was so deserted at the time I went. I'm sure I'll get used to it in time. I guess I've experienced my very first taste of "Future Shock." (Which in itself was unsettling for someone who would normally identify themselves as belonging to the Paranoia Pro-Tech secret society.)

Low tech method

[Servo]

I use one of those barcodes when I purchase my groceries. My grocery chain (Shope Rite) then sends me mailers that are targeted to what I buy. At the checkout, they also print coupons based on what I buy. Say, I buy a package of Gardenburger veggie burgers.. I usually get a coupon for my next trip on that same item.

Something else I've noticed, I was buying Silk soymilk for a long time, and then I switched to 8th Continent soymilk. Every time I buy 8th Continent, I get a coupon for Silk! So I buy the Silk the next week, no coupon, and then I go buy 8th again, and yep, coupon for Silk again.