New York, NY – Microsoft’s new souped-up supermarket shopping carts may do for the grocery list what GPS did for driving directions.
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A box of cereal will be scanned as it’s tossed in the cart. Shoppers at a loss for where to find refried beans or chocolate ice cream can be instantly directed to the right aisle and shelf.
And best of all, there’s no need to wait on the checkout line. Once the cart totals up everything inside, all shoppers have to do is swipe their card, bag the groceries and walk out the door.
There is a catch, of course. The new carts, which will soon be hitting the aisles of Shop Rites everywhere, also enable advertisers to make their case as you are walking by a particular item on the shelves.
“It targets an ad at the precise moment the decision is being made,” said Scott Ferris, general manager of Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions.
“Companies like Kraft have long had to rely on a ton of television or print advertising which is seen well before the shopping occurs,” he said. “We wanted to leverage the immediacy of the actual shopping experience.”
Using the store’s Wi-Fi network, the cart will know it is near the macaroni and cheese, for instance, Ferris said. It might advocate one brand over others and entice the shopper with a coupon while they are contemplating the choice. [nypost]
WOW, at least in the mountains we have the self checkout……..
“We don’t even have self-service checkout”
That is already in NY too.
Used it last week in Park Slope Key Food.
for your information HomeDepot does have four self checkout customers……both stores the one on hamilton ave and the one in willy town dekalb corner lee ave.
This is coming to NY? We’re usually the last to get the cool technology. We don’t even have self-service checkout, like they do in other places.
If there’s a WiFi network in the store I wonder if they’ll open it up for people to use… I know right now Shoprite on Ave I & Macdonald does not have a network.
Just what we need….
Now we will have people “driving” and “shopping” while talking on their Da** cell phones. Will the Shoprite GPS also tell us to make a legal U- turn when passing the cheerio box?
.5 miles to your destination?
If there are 6 people ahead of us and traffic gets slow in isle 7 will the gps re-route us?
The ganovim will love shoppping now. Now the ganovim will steal the cart, the groceries and the GPS!
I guarantee all this techology that we think will make our lives easier will make us dumber and more impatient.
Oh, and when the GPS carts are down and out of order will the store be closed for the day?
We also now know why the store on Ave L and Coney will be state of the art this coming May 2008.
Someone will be paying higher prices for all of this stuff.
.
now we know why kollel store redid the place