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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."
[BA-DA-BUM!]
I'll be here all night!
Alerting the homeless person who just stole the cart when they are coming upon an empty cardboard box.
...and yet they still can't make them go straight when you push 'em.
I like gadgets as much as the next geek, but isn't this a little absurd? Grocery shopping is not that difficult, people.
The computer will also alert shoppers as they approach favorite items or promotions.
Oh great, like I need a machine alerting me and everyone around me that we're approaching the condom aisle and there's a discount on my usual brand in bulk quantities.
...
Ok, yeah, i know, wishful thinking...
this isn't a sig. i type this (including the two dashes), every time i post, just to make it look like a sig.
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.
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I've been using the computer carts at Stop & Shop in Quincy MA(S&S HQ), and they are really cool. When you go down an isle it will tell you what you normally buy, and what's on sale. it will keep a running total of how much $$ your current cart costs, and when it's time to check out, you just walk up to the register, swip your shopper card, then pay.
I just wish they would pay me for doing my own bagging and scanning!!!!!
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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.
Massachusetts' mayor annoounced a program to educate the city's bums in order for them to take advantage of the new high-tech shopping cart technology, like inventory tracking of all the cans/stuff they put in and a wireless service that provides aluminum-can-to-booze market ratios for them to get more bang from their cans.
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"
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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 addition, future features could include pharmacy favorites, ordering and notification, as well as product information that allows for comparison with similar items, consumer ratings and gift suggestions.
Wife: I can't believe you gave our nine-year old son a box of detergent for a birthday present!
Husband: I know, that's the last time I get my gift advice from a fucking shopping cart!
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.
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....
1. Increase overhead astronomically.
2. ???
3. Profit!
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.
"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!"
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);
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?
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?
I'm an introvert. Just being at the store is about all the interactivity I want in a given day. Make it any more interactive and I'm going to need some quiet time afterwards!
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.
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
Great, now we've found a way to outsource cashier work over to data entry jobs in India.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
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.
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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!