These days, technology seems to be everywhere you go – having a more significant and beneficial role in our everyday lives. The weekly (or daily for some!) plight of supermarket shopping seems to be no exception, with numerous companies in the sector (such as Tesco and FreshDirect) seeking to make this often choresome task a more streamlined, efficient activity. And with apparently 98% of groceries still being purchased through a physical trip to the store, it’s easy to see why there’s big incentive for them to do so. Here are just a few of the recent developments in technology in this area:
Mobile Apps
Aisle411 is a nifty mobile app that gives any user the facility to search for and locate products within retail stores. You can find and map out your entire shopping list or locate a single item via a mobile map. Currently available in 100’s of stores in America, this idea is fantastic as well as quite simplistic,so it should catch on in other countries.
Kid Carts
The already mundane task of shopping can become arduous when children are involved – something which American chain King Soopers are well aware of. They have created car-shaped carts with inbuilt video technology to try and combat this task. There is a video screen inside the car that plays entertaining child shows and another screen that shows advertisements relating to store products. Parent/child/marketing heaven, perhaps?
Barcode-less Scanning
Japanese company Toshiba have invented a new scanner that uses pattern/colour recognition to identify any product within a store. This means that scanning without barcodes is now a reality, so supermarket workers don’t have to key in items such as fruit or vegetables through the tillpoint.
Check Out without checking-out
Lastly, there is an Australian grocery chain called Coles that has teamed up with IBM to install radio tags on items. These items could be read as a person departs from the store, and then paid for via technology used from smartphone/credit card. It’s all still in the making, but this idea would certainly be a good way to speed up grocery store woes.
It will be interesting to see how these ideas progress and how commonplace they will be over the next few years.
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