Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Grocers

netbuzz writes "The law of unintended consequences is taking a chomp out of grocery chain profits as more stores transition from human clerks to self-service checkout technology, thus reducing the time shoppers spend in line and under the temptation of impulse items. That's the upshot of research being released tomorrow by IHL Consulting Group in Franklin, Tenn., which provides market analysis to the retail industry and its IT vendors."

Comments

RFID

[Ethan Allison]

Why not use those 5 cent RFID tags? Place your shopping cart in the scanner and hit a button. "But what about produce?" you ask? Well, how about RFID-enabled bags with specific tags for each kind of produce? Sure, it's not perfect, but it could be refined. Plus people could return the tags for store credit, and information embedded in the tags could be used to manage inventory and tell robotic machinery how to bag and/or stock the items. Also, if you steal my idea, I will hunt you down.