Slashdot Mirror
High-Tech Shopping Carts
neutron_p writes "A Massachusetts-based supermarket chain says it will roll out new intelligent shopping carts that promise to make food shopping much more personalized and interactive. They will let shoppers email their shopping lists to the store and check prices on the spot. Each new 'Shopping Buddy' cart mounts a wireless, touch-screen IBM computer, equipped with a laser scanner. The computer will also alert shoppers as they approach favorite items or promotions."
I like gadgets as much as the next geek, but isn't this a little absurd? Grocery shopping is not that difficult, people.
Gotta hate that last part. "The computer will also alert shoppers as they approach favorite items or promotions". First of all, I can remember myself what are my favorite items, thanks a lot. Secondly, I have the feeling that "promotions" will be in 99% cases stuff I don`t need.
High tech isn't always good, remember that. Sometimes a shopping cart is best left as.. well, a shopping cart.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
First off, I'm a HCI major, and I've worked on designing human factors related stuff.
Now, leave everything else - this is simply pointless.
When I go shopping, I just go shopping. I would not bother making a list, e-mailing it them and what not. They forget the human-factors part of it - people will not go to the lengths to do something like this (atleast I won't). These are the same people who find it hard to move their mice up 2 cms to click a button - they're actually going to go to this lengths to do this?
NO WAY.
And usually, when I visit the supermarket, I go in a specific order that I'm used to. As and when I go through the things, I look at what I need to buy and buy it -- it's something that my brain is used to. And people who're used to writing lists, will continue to write lists and strike them off. This new fangled way is just asking for too much effort on the part of the user.
Man, why do they try and throw technology to each and every problem? As though it's a panacea of some sort.
What's so new? isn't that what "club cards" were for?
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
They will be used partly like Clippy or Bonsai Buddy...
"You seem to be heading towards our towel section. Please check our our monthly specials on bathroom rugs"
OTOH, this could be quite useful if it was used as an information service rather than a marketing oportunity. For exmaple: Can't find an item? Have the shopping cart locate it for you! Want to know what the specials are in a given department? Look them up on your shopping card...
This sort of thing could be really useful, but I dread having a talking paperclip appear and say
"You appear to be writing a letter. May I suggest that you buy our envelopes?. Also we have paper on isle 4 and postage stamps at the register"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Yeah, i use the handbaskets too. Living by myself, there's little need to buy much more than would require a handbasket. I really hope all stores don't go to this. I just don't see this really making anyone's life better. And how about instead of all these fancy "improvements" to shopping, they just gave us more choice and lower prices? Or is that harder to advertise? -Bill
Now I have way to know when I'm approaching my favorite items!
Before, I had to rely on blind luck. I would run into the supermarket, eyes clos...hey wait a minute!!
I'VE GOT EYES!!!!!! I just forgot to open them all this time!
Problem solved!
Seriously, the more I learn about technology, the more I believe it should be kept FAR AWAY FROM PEOPLE.
In the old days, the lay people would be afraid of technology and what it might do to impact their lives negatively, while the scientists and smart people tried to explain the benefits.
Now it's the other way around.. lay people just LOVE all this crap, and the smart people are going, "uhm, you know when your email goes BING every five seconds and you go to check it, that actually makes you LESS productive even though you are BUSIER?" and "yes, that bluetooth feature is cool, but did you know that I just downloaded your whole contact list, including the speed-dial entry for 1-800-GRANNY-GASH?" and "actually, electronic voting machines DO run on the same version of windows that you use" and so on and so on....
Actually, I think that point gives a clue about why this is likely to fail. Well, I hate to say fail because it will likely find a strong niche somewhere, but it won't be widely adopted anytime soon.
This is very complex and fragile technology that they want stores to implement, generally the very same stores that won't bother to give their equipment a little maintainance, such as replacing a caster, straightening out bent tubes or squirting a bit of oil in the bearings. Grocery stores are often riding on very thin profit margins of about one percent last I read. And you want to add a wireless computer with LCD panel and barcode scanner, ready for customers to abuse? Even if you charge a deposite for the feature, I bet few would want to do this.
This system requires the use of email, right?
... and more electronic junk mail, too!
Well then, there's only one certain outcome of this system: more spam!
~UP
Eat the Path.
"I see your shopping list contains two items that may be used in bomb making or for creating meth. Your local police department has been notified and will pick you up for questioning in five minutes.
We thank you for shopping here, and have a nice day!"
All you have to do is insert ten thousand quarters to unlock it from the rest of the carts out front!
I worked at Safeway for a bit during high school, I know how people mistreat the carts (its actually probably the staff's fault that the carts never drive straight!) So what happens with an expensive gadget cart?
They have to make the geek man's shopping cart:
A cart that reads your shopping list on your USB key drive, then gives you the most efficient route to each ingredient, solving the Travelling Salesman problem once and for all (and make shopping a bit less of a chore for husbands everywhere!).
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
You know what would really be useful on shopping carts? Calculators.
Even better, barcode scanners that read out the price of each item in your cart and keep a running total. It'd be nice to catch the pricing "errors" before you get the the checkout stand.
I think my subject pretty much sums up my feelings. This sounds to me like one of the most annoying uses for technology I have heard about in a very long time.
I wonder if the person who invented those automated touch tone dialers that pass as customer service departments that I find so despicable had anything to do with this?
It's sorta interesting to see how amazingly complex they make the act of buying a jug of milk. At present my local supermarket sells milk at about $4.00/gal. I also know the same milk is almost always onsale in the coupon book for 1/2 the price. I drink 1/2 gal daily and I easily save $300+ yearly. I hit the website before I hit the store and print off a coupon that won't scan (stupid jpg) and write a little note "web coupons don't scan blame them". Coupons are a total waste of time for both the consumer and the retailer. I only look for that milk coupon, I don't bother checking for anything else. However a Trader Joes will be opening near me, and they sell milk consistently for just slightly over $2.00/gal. Guess where I'll be buying my milk.
Now we have this smart-cart which I admit sounds like it has some nice features to it, but it mostly seems like a device designed to waste my time. I imagine this is no diffrent than any other medium, offing some great reward for taking the time to look at their crap. It would be nice if more stores would simply respect what consumers like my self want, which is to just freaking go in and buy stuff without any complex games with the prices.
Give me Trader Joes, give me Costco. Don't give me loyalty cards, don't give me targeted demographics, or captive advertising. Screw the marketing think tanks who's sole purpose in life is to convience me buying a coke will get women I hardly even know to give me a handjob.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I live in Massachusetts and Stop-n-Stop (the "Massachusetts supermarket chain") was beta testing these or something similar with select people a few years back. most of the time it takes you a while to realize and/or take advantage of the actual convenience. most people are either afraid or sick of being hassled by technology. anyway I think it's a waste of money. those new digital self-checkouts aren't any faster... but they get the user involved (removing boredom) and slow things down even further when idiots use them. plus they eliminate jobs. :\
I'd be happy with this scenario:
-Go to the grocery store's website.
-Pick out all of the items I would like to purchase (prices listed).
-Recieve an order number.
-Go to the store.
I'd even be happier if at this point, you show up at a drive-up area, swipe your credit card, and your order is loaded in your car for you.
Gee isnt that cute he is an HCI major
Geesh I have been working in UI/HCI for quite some time now, and if I ever USED I so many times in trying to make an agument I would be FIRED
so.... they can't do this profiling at the register?
I am very doubtful that they don't make enough profit on the grocerys.
There are always "budget" places that are cheaper than the normal places, and that means there is a reasonable mark-up on every item in the store.
Hello, they are selling sugar water for multiple dollars often.
There is no way they don't make a profit off the food.
frankly, I'm suprised that all the comments so far underestimate the company that supplies laptops to the australian army, and laptops with fingerprint identification, or the company that makes computers that can be dropped/kicked/blown up and still work.
from what I saw in the video, these things were removable from the cart, and wirelessly connected to the in-house IBM server for their intellegence. if they were taken away from the store, they stopped working and were relatively useless as computers.
so basically, they could go to a better cart if the cart broke, and they wouldn't really be very fun if someone stole them
And from the video I watched, the best part was not that they remembered your list, or that they let you place deli orders, or that they showed you coupons, but that you could scan items as you buy them and then walk straight through the checkout by just swiping your credit card! For the love of god, could you imagine how much money that could save in cashiers, and how much time that could save for those poor souls for whom the line is the longest part of their shopping trip?!
I don't know about you, but this just seems like the next step from those self-checkout things they have today. and these are a lot more helpful along the way as you shop.
if it makes my shopping experience at Stop&Shop in NY quicker and more pleasant, then I'll be happy to give up my tin-foil, cynical, slashdotter hat for some quick and easy zit-cream, beer, and potato chips.
Call me pessemistic, but these carts will become almost entirely marketing tools.
I can't see stores trying to help you purchase what's on your list, or getting you through the store more quickly.
If I go to the store to get toothpaste and detertergent, invariablly I'll end up with a few T-bone steaks (50% off!), some ketchup (the 80 oz bottle at 16oz bottle price!), some cereal (darn I walked down wrong aisle), and candy and cola (just cuz I never have enough).
It's in the stores best interest to make the items you want more difficult to find, while making items they want to get rid of easy to find with giant blinking lights and bright red "WOW" stickers.
Once the novelty wears off, stores will either dump the carts because impulse sales are down, or turn the carts into non-stop advertisers.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
the definition from the book. thats great. thats the difference between a course and real life. companies want to convince customers what they need and that they need a lot of it.
i was working for a large, large consumer goods company where one of their VPs said to me, "there is food we produce to eat and food we produce to sell" while looking at a can of mini-franks (cocktail franks).
It seems that no matter where you live that some shopping carts always end up on the side of the road somewhere or something along those lines.
Now as others in this thread have pointed out this whole deal has basically nothing to do with the customers experience and everything to do about filling up more databases to sell to manufactures.
My question is will the cost of a) buying and maintaining, b) preventing theft/vandalism, and c) ensuring that they give accurate data be enough to cover whatever profit margin they hope to obtain?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
... I'd say that the main goal of marketing is to satisfy customer needs, not push ads down everyone's throat. The defenition from the book says that marketing is "a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others"
I took a bunch of marketing courses on the way to my MBA. When you start looking at things from the executive level, things work a bit differently. The goal of a corporation is to return value to its investors. Marketing allegedly supports this function by ensuring that the right Product is sold at the right Price at the right Place with the right Promotion to maximize profit. The customers' needs and desires are only considered from the point of how they can be used to maximize profit.
Many corporations are weak in Marketing, but don't realize it. They try to use Promotion to offset Product, Placement, or Price weaknesses. The Marketing department may not even have the authority to have input on placement, price, or product, leaving only promotion for them to work with. Or, they may be incompetent in areas other than promotion. (I've met more than one of those.) Consequently, we get ads jammed down our throats, since the Marketing folks can do little else.
Or, I could be wrong, and the few marketing folks I met were exceptions, and the marketing screwups I have observed were cases where Marketing didn't really have an input, and the best and brightest go into marketing, not the cool people who are just good at (self) promotion.