Supermarkets: High-Tech Hotbeds

Esther Schindler writes "You don't think of your supermarket as the source of geeky innovation, but you may be surprised. For example, in Steven Cherry's Supermarkets Are High-Tech Hotbeds, a Techwise Conversation with Kurt Kendall, a partner and director at Kurt Salmon, where he heads the analytics practice there, we learn: 'A lot of supermarket tech is at the checkout area. Bar-code scanning was already old hat when U.S. president George Bush the elder was allegedly amazed by them in 1992, and retailers continue to experiment with the next logical step: self-checkout systems. There's a lot of technologies out there right now that are being introduced into the retail space to understand what consumers are doing in the store, and heat-mapping is one of those technologies--using cameras in the ceiling to actually track where the consumer's going. What this information tells the retailer is where a consumer is, how they're moving around the store, whether they're dwelling in certain places, like checkout or in front of specific merchandise."

Comments

How much tech for a nickel?

[justthinkit]

How much tech can you have in an industry with profit margins of 1 or 2%?

Re:How much tech for a nickel?

[ArcherB]

How much tech can you have in an industry with profit margins of 1 or 2%?

1% of a lot of money is still a lot of money. Businesses that do more business can afford to take smaller profit margins because they deal with such larger volumes. For example, a convenience store that does $10,000 worth of business over a weekend won't make it on 1% profit. That's a mere $100. But a grocery store that does $1,000,000 over that same weekend will do just fine on the same 1% as that is $10,000 profit.

$10,000 buys a lot more technical investment than $100.

Re:How much tech for a nickel?

[bill_mcgonigle]

How much tech can you have in an industry with profit margins of 1 or 2%?

The net probably varies by store, but the old song about the grocer only making a penny or two on each item is long worn-out, even counting for inflation-driven price increases. There may be certain items in each store that are loss-leaders, but when I see whole-dollar differences in prices from store to store and have a general idea on what the wholesale prices are, it's hard to feel the pathos they desire.

How supermarkets get your data – and what t

[auric_dude]

It doesn't matter if you are part of a loyalty scheme, pay by card or even cash, 'Big Brother' supermarkets know your every move http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jun/08/supermarkets-get-your-data

It's a never ending infowar

[Dr_Barnowl]

The supermarkets are one of the most active propaganda experts on the planet - the next generation of infowar is being fought there.

Forget the CIA ; their intelligence collection is old school.

The supermarkets want to skew their customers towards raising that margin of about 4% ; even a tiny skew is worth it to them.

So they profile your buying habits, they work out what you buy. They work out what everyone buys. They want to know what kind of person buys the high-end ice-cream, and other high-margin items. Quite aside from the obvious ploys, like putting coupons out for high margin items so you'll get into the habit of buying them, they'll coupon other items that aren't high margin, but they know that people who buy them are high-margin customers.

Alas, this means less shelf space for the items that low-margin customers buy, like basic staples. Who cares, you can get those things from the Mom & Pop store, right? Oh...

A whole host of infowar tricks, like reorganising the store shelves periodically to disrupt your "route" and get you in front of lines you don't usually buy.

Bagging Area...

[CohibaVancouver]

please place your item in the bagging area thank you please place your item in the bagging area thank you.