iPhone Shopping

I've had a lot of ideas over the years and been either too chicken to try them out or just didn't have the resources to put them into effect in a timely fashion. This idea falls into the latter. I'm a thinker, not an engineer!

Not to mention, this one may have been done already anyway! Regardless, it seems to have potential.

Here's an expression of the idea.

There are a gazillion iPhones and other smart phones out there with location sensing built in. Every grocery store, practially, has customers with iPhones and wouldn't it be cool for stores to set up software to tell you what is in the aisle you're in? Better yet, integrate it with your grocery list and optimize your path through the store to shorten the time you spend in the store. (Marketers, stay tuned here.)

The app could start before you leave home. It might be a nice option to do your shopping at the grocery store's online web site and compose a shopping list and upload to the smart phone before you leave home. When you get to the store, the iPhone senses where you are in the store's floor plan and sends you to the nearest item, tells you where it is on the shelf when you get there, shows you a picture of it, and you just click or wave as you put it in your cart to cross it off your list. Then the phone sends you to the next nearest item on your list.

Cool, eh?! RfID technology would integrate especially well, particularly with regard to the store detecting where it's products are in the floor plan. This would help reduce setup time and inventory availability tracking.

Shopping malls would be able to use this kind of thing in a big way. Every store in a mall could participate and shoppers could be directed to every place they need to go. When lunch time arrives, it could suggest a place to eat and list out some favorites.

Marketers may not like the idea that it will route people through the store pretty quickly. Going back to the grocery store example, suppose a guy comes in and just blows through, grabbing everything he has on his list and exits the store in short order. The marketing guys are going to have a cow because the guy didn't have time to make any impulse buys.

I'll admit this is a possibility, however, remember that people are, well, people. They aren't exactly going to walk (or run) through the store like robots on a search and destroy mission. They are still taking in all of the other things they see and will definitely drop items into their carts. If the shopper wants to do so, he can scan items going into his cart so they gets added to his list for future use. The app also keeps a total of all his stuff in the cart so he knows how much he has "spent" thus far. Marketers are going to be able to see this list, just like the current checkout receipts for items bought at the register. But here's something marketers will get that is new: They can see what people took back out of their carts and returned to the shelf! How valuable is that information?! Dream come true, eh? Of course, what you do with that info is up to you, marketing gurus!

Also, for you marketers, what better opportunity to build intelligence into the app and do some cross-selling?! Say the guy has put bread, cheese and lunch meat into his shopping cart. The app could suggest a couple of condiments and tell him where they are during his trip through the store or simply suggest it when he's walking past it. Of course, this can work during shopping list creation prior to reaching the store but once a person is in the store, it can adapt for the impulse buys along the way. Probably more critical at that point anyway.

Before he leaves the store, the app reminds him if he happens to have forgotten anything important. Maybe. Fact is, if the store is out of something, it may create a secondary shopping list, suggest another location in town which has the item and send him over there to get it. Or even suggest another store. Helping people is the idea here, right? You make some friends and they'll come back, and we all know it! Maybe that's too altruistic!

If you think people won't use this technology, remember the geek factor. Sure there are plenty of jocks with smart phones but believe me, there is a bit of geek in all of us nowadays and just the cool factor alone would give this app quite the appeal. You have to believe that people with smart phones will prioritize such stores over those who don't have the technology.

At checkout, the shopper pays from the smart phone app with an online payment method. Maybe. That one requires a lot more thought. Coupons could be sent electronically to the smart phone and then sent to the register at checkout. Again, more thought required.

After a guy is done shopping, he leaves the store and the app saves his list to be modified for use on another trip so he doesn't have to recreate it from scratch. The app asks if he is willing to complete a survey of his opinions of the store, the accessibility of the store, his satisfaction with the store's ambiance, pricing or whatever you like. You already know, however, keep it short. You just saved the guy a lot of time and asking 20 questions afterward is not going to make him feel good about it!

Of course, as a guy goes through the week, he keeps updating his list for Sunday's trip to the store.

With sufficient resources, this wouldn't take long to implement. There would be a trial and error period, to be sure, but managed correctly, frustrations shouldn't cause too many hiccups.

Prior attempts to build similar technology with shopping carts seem to have failed because, among other things, they were blatant in-your-face marketing efforts, not a help the shopper's needs. Also, even though the idea was ahead of its time back then, sorta, the hardware didn't exactly rise to the occasion. Now, however, it we have what we need to make the idea of electronic store mapping work well and create a extremes of symbiosis between technology and the mundane experiences of grocery shopping even. Or especially the thrills of shopping at the mall! Again, marketers, be careful you don't overdo the marketing glitz and mess it up for yourselves!

Privacy concerns abound here, of course. Just enable the user to keep his lists to himself or let them know that the lists will be used to enhance further trips to the store or whatever. Nothing wrong with asking them to help you help them, is there?

I have to apologize, sorta, for the abundance of male-centric pronouns in my post, but it's easier to write that way. Gotta get it all written out before I forget too many of the ideas. I'll use female pronouns in other posts! Don't get offended, ladies, I'm thinking of you, too!

I've forgotten more refinements than I've put in here but there are more to be had that I never thought of, that's certain.

--Wag--