Microsoft Will Stream Ads To Grocery Carts 484
dptalia writes "Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. These carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the ShopRite site from home, and then pull up the list on their grocery cart when they swipe their card. The new carts will also display advertisements depending on where in the supermarket the cart is, using RFID technology to help locate it."
Fucking spammers (Score:5, Interesting)
oh great (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be good! (Score:3, Interesting)
What is a grocery store? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's 2008 and the big innovation is a shopping car that spams you while it directs you around a bunch of aisles essentially the same way we did in 1945, but with more targeted marking and shelving placement than ever? Really? That's the best we can do?
Maybe it's a generational thing, but I have not shopped in a grocery store in almost my entire adult life. The last time I went into a grocery store was 1999. I get my groceries delivered to me with the click of a button. I decide what time I want my groceries, they come to my door and carry them into my kitchen. I spend almost zero time involved in groceries. While this is probably only available in big cities like the bay area, Portland, Denver and others, this is something that should be both available *and* used everywhere by almost every one. You don't still go out and butcher or milk your own cow. You don't go out and pick your own oranges. So why wheel a cart around like some sort of trained monkey in a store full of fluorescent lights and elevator music and snotty whining kids grabbing things off the shelves and throwing tantrums in the middle of the aisle?
Hell, I haven't bought shoes in person or tools or entertainment in person in years, either. Except for rare instances involving things like my car that can't be otherwise addressed, I have reduced actual physical shopping to something I no longer "have" to do. For years, the only shopping I've had to do is that which I *choose* to do. Things that make it a luxury. Places and things that I can enjoy going to and shopping for (such as home entertainment stuff). I farm the crap shopping off to the wonderful services that Albertsons, Safeway, Kingsoopers and others now offer (and before that, Webvan, etc).
So that there's a new little attachment to a shopping car that more efficiently delivers shit to your eyeballs while supposedly easing up your shopping situation -- IN 2008 -- is the least impressive thing I've heard this year.
A better idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is a grocery store? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure one good wack into the side of an asile will disable these damn things. Or dropping a 50lb bag of chicken feed on it will do.
"butcher or milk your own cow" I get eggs from my chickens, does that count?
Re:My aren't you blowing high and mighty (Score:5, Interesting)
I did the same thing that the GP did, and the only reason I know it was a Shell station is because I explicitly checked once the ads started so I'd know which gas stations to avoid in the future. I wouldn't have known it was Shell if they hadn't made me care.
Re:What is a grocery store? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A better idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Bottom falls out of pencil sharpener market. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What is a grocery store? (Score:1, Interesting)
I will not buy clothes/shoes online because i like to try it on first, and examine the quality.
I dont have a problem driving 3mins to the supermarket, and getting it there, i can easily compare fat/sugar content with competing brands, if they are out of stock of a certain brand i can quickly and easily select something different. I can examine the meats to get the best cuts that i want.
Yesterday evening, i walked around 4km (return) to the shops and back just to get some Kantong sweet and sour sauce to cook with dinner (and it was a nice day and wanted a walk), it took me forever to find the stuff once i was there though. So I think it would be awesome if the new system also told you where abouts each item on the list is in the store (at least what isle or better what side and what what half of the isle its located), also tallying up how much the list should cost and alert to any specials that are on (eg 2 for 1) would be great as well.
Then id have to wait 5 years for that technology to make it to Aus.
Just because you dont like to leave the house don't assume no one prefers to shop in person.
Theft (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is a grocery store? (Score:4, Interesting)
In short, if you care about what you eat, you need to find it yourself. You might not need to butcher the cow or catch the fish, but you need to be able to look at what's for same and decide if its good quality or not. I doubt what you get is any good.
Re:Baaaaahhaaah! Baaaahhh! (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh, gawd... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That will NEVER happen (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot depends on the store: some stores strongly believe the Piggly Wiggly model that says you make more money by putting "necessities" (diapers, toothpaste, whatever) at the back so that you'll impulse buy your way to and from the goods you need. Other choices are constrained by logistics and architecture: milk, deli and frozen goods are frequently kept at the back simply because the coolers have to be mounted with their service doors facing the loading docks. Other stores have different goals, and lay out their floor plans accordingly.
Most stores work long and hard with layouts. There's always a set of compromises to be made, and frequently original assumptions about traffic and shopping patterns turn out to be either wrong, or customers change their behaviors over time.
For example, some Apple stores used to have the Genius Bar located along the middle of the side wall, with the cash registers along the far back wall, and the "family room" for the kids somewhere in between the two. It looked great from the front door, and on paper. But placing the geniuses there led to large crowds of non-geniuses in the middle of the store waiting for the geniuses, blocking traffic to and from the cash registers at the rear. Worse, people were leaving the registers with large, awkward boxes tromping past piles of squirrelly children and negotiating the crowds. Their newer store layouts feature the genius bar along the back wall, and they moved the receipt printers/registers nearer to the front doors. Employees (who are theoretically more careful than random customers) now carry the clumsy boxes from the back rooms carefully past the piles of children to the waiting customers at the front of the stores, who now only have to pay and then leave.
Re:Fucking spammers (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure laugh, but Walmart (who probably has the biggest database in the world) found that men who bought diapers also sometimes bought beer (on their way home from the office). So they moved the beer section next to the diapers. Sales of beer skyrocketed.
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Walmart tracks EVERYTHING about every purchase. The date, time, weather, what you purchased, the relative locations of all those items (top shelf, bottom shelf, etc). A few years ago they had a multi-terra byte database. It must be in the teen peta bytes by now. Nothing about any location of any item is random. It is all planned out. I remember watching a show where they used time-lapsed cameras to see how most people walked through the store, then adjusted item locations so that the typical shopper would always walk by the items they were pushing that day.
Re:I'm guessing he's not frugal either. (Score:3, Interesting)
Takes about 40 minutes of my time. And I get to go out and get various other things in the neighbourhood while I'm at it. I looked at shopping online but it wasn't worth the hassle (takes longer unless you always pick the same thing and ends up being more expensive).
If there were animated ads on the carts I'd shop elsewhere though.
Re:Baaaaahhaaah! Baaaahhh! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:obligatory (Score:3, Interesting)
If your are clumsy placing items in the cart and break the screen have your bought the shopping trolley. On top of all that, with all those wireless trolleys in the supermarket, it will be radiating a lot of rf energy into the customers and more disturbingly into young children and where will the locate the antenna with regards to child seats in some shopping trolleys.
Of course you also have the hassle of building battery charging facilities into the shopping cart storage facility which now has to be completely under cover and temperature controlled to prevent condensation issues at the charging point. Yeah, it all sounds like a great idea in some marketdroids head, and M$ as always will make all sorts of vacuous promises, but when it comes to the actual implementation that's when all the real problems start.
Re:Baaaaahhaaah! Baaaahhh! (Score:3, Interesting)
As for advertising, the grocery story sends all sorts of stuff to "resident" in this area, anyway. The only difference would be I get my name on the To: address.
Golden opportunity for hackers? (Score:3, Interesting)