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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 agree. The only thing a computer on a cart could do for me would be to be able to locate specific items. For instance, Jalapeno peppers are located with Mexican food in some stores, pickles in others, and chips and dip in others. It would be nice to be able to find an item by hitting a few keys instead of trying to find a clerk. It would also be nice if it had a calculator so I can figure the best deal when store labels aren't in uniform units. (For instance, some meats in oz, other in lbs.)
Of course, the marketing-types will corrupt this to point folks in a certain direction, with ad revenue coming in for specific items. A search for jalepenos might yield "Microsoft Jalapenos are on Aisle 4, in the Special Purchase Department. They are on Sale for $2.59 for a 5 oz. Jar, saving you seventy five cents off of their normal price" and ignoring the better buys on commodity items (16oz jar of Acme jalepenos for $1.49 in aisle 5 with the pickles).
Or maybe I am just pessimistic, and marketing folks really have our best interests at heart. After all, aren't Golgafrin...er, marketing professionals valuable and intelligent members of our society?
In Connecticut I've been using the automated checkout for about a year and a half. It is very convenient, but it is a computer, in a supermarket. Cashiers use glorified calculators, but the automated checkout is the real deal, a computer that needs the love and care of a sysadmin that the grocery store environment does not provide. A fleet of computerized shopping carts is not what these stores need.
I was in the process of checking out, when I paid with cash, then finished paying with a debit card. No receipt came, I brought this to the attention of the person who attends the 4 automatic checkouts. Well, there was no receipt because there was no record of my transaction, my paying, or the items in my cart ever being scanned or going through the belt. Testing showed that it could create new transaction entries, so it was looking very much like I was trying to steal those ~$70 worth of groceries.
30 minutes later, nothing really resolved, because there was nothing apparently wrong with the machine and no alarms went off as I bagged my groceries that went through the belt, they let me go despite all evidence pointing towards my guilt.
The next time I checked myself out and paid with cash & debit I got no receipt. I didn't say anything, and I don't pay with cash & debit anymore.
This is all a huge scam. I worked with a major S. Cal grocery chain (that must go unnamed) during their early experiments in "smart carts." They have no interest whatsoever in improving your shopping experience with smart carts. Their sole motivation is to gather more customer data. Did you know that grocery chains make far more money selling customer data than they do selling groceries? The profit margin on groceries is very slim, but corporations will pay big bucks for consumer purchasing behavior records. They want huge databases of purchasing behavior so the can statistically analyze what other products customers are buying alongside their products.
A friend in Europe told me that there's at least one supermarket in France where they have different colored carts which supposedly indicate your marital status - kind of like a "singles grocery store". If you're single and looking you have a different colored cart. As goofy as it sounds, it seems like an interesting way for people to meet. Can anyone confirm the existence of such a supermarket?
They are already employed here in Belgium; you can pick up your barcode scanner and scan in all your items while your shop. On checkout the computer reads your total from the scanner, and you pay for whatever you've scanned. A "random check" is generated by the computer so you never know when your items are scanned in at the registers so you wouldn't carry out more then you scanned.
It's pretty neato.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1