Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Shopping
Hugh Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that a new device, now in use at about half of Ahold USA's Stop & Shop and Giant supermarkets in the Northeast, is making supermarket shoppers — and stores — happier. Looking like a smartphone, perched on the handle of your shopping cart, it scans grocery items as you add them to your cart. And while shoppers like it because it helps avoid an interminable wait at the cashier, retailers like it because the device encourages shoppers to buy more, probably because of targeted coupons and the control felt by consumers while using the device. Retail experts predict that before long most of these mobile shopping gadgets will be supplanted by customers' own smartphones. As more customers load their smartphones with debit, credit and loyalty card information, more stores will adopt streamlined checkout technology."
We've had these for years in the UK
This has been used in the UK since around 1996/7. You get a random 'audit' every N visits.
I first used these in the UK in Safeway back in the late 90s. Now that they've been takenover by Morrisons I don't think they have them anymore.
Waitrose still have them though. You just swipe your credit card and it tells you which handset to pick up, and then you do your shopping. Article from 1997: http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/articles.aspx?page=articles&ID=33232
Is this really a new thing in the US?
"The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through the automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable."
â" U.S. Privacy Protection Study Commission, 1977
Dilbert RSS feed
First off, retail sales are UP right now. Second, they already showed when using the ScanIt device that customers spent 10% more on their final bill. So, what you talking bout willis?