The Next Big Thing

I have a friend with whom I frequently brainstorm new business ideas. While we both agree that all our ideas are good, we know they’re probably not the revolutionary ideas we’re looking for to turn us into billionaires. In a discussion last night, I mentioned how I thought it was strange that while some industries/activities have been hugely influenced and made better by techology – i.e. checking email on your phone, etc – there were heaps that are lagging behind. In particular, retail and shopping.

While ‘online shopping’ is now all the rage, research shows that online shopping accounts for only 4% of total sales in Australia. Why then, aren’t bricks and mortar stores using technology more to improve the shopping experience, or at least the marketing of it? It might be expense, as when I worked at Myer they said they havent switched over to LCD POS terminals because they cost $25k each. Fair enough. Still.. let’s talk as if money isn’t much of an object.

There was recently a story about smart trolleys recently aired on Today Tonight. I’m surprised it’s taken so long to get these into stores as I am desperate for this kind of system. Let’s go through the features they describe:

The console allows you to download your shopping list and, backed by a network of in-store sensors, warns you when you are approaching an item you wish to buy. The sensor thing is pretty wicked, as I hadn’t heard about that. I don’t think it’s hugely necessary, but still a nice feature anyway, as I frequently forget 1 or 2 items when I have a lot to get.

It will advertise shop specials as you pass them, and you can scan your loyalty card into the system as well. I kind of expect this as a minimum, especially the loyalty card thing. Definitely a recommendation system though would be great, for both sales and compatible products. I REALLY want companies who produce consumer products to market to me more, especially the supermarket, as I love trying new products and being made aware of specials, but I can’t always remember them from the catalogue.

You can even place a deli order and receive a message when it is ready for collection. One of my local supermarkets has this in a little kiosk type thing already, and it’s very convenient. Great feature to have on the trolley as they deli department can be the most annoying when it’s busy. It may also mean that they could cut other meat fresh for you and you could pick it up after you’ve gone round and got the rest of your stuff.

I do feel that some things are missing though… I know security is a problem, so I would love to see trolleys with a metal weighted base (like at the self serve checkouts) that will integrate with the trolley console so you could just ‘pick and pay’ as you go and only have to pack your trolley once. Not having to even speak to a checkout operator would be great, even though it means there would be a lot of 15 year olds and high school dropouts out of a job. (Although some smarty pants has recommended they all go into more personalised customer service roles – perhaps product demonstrators? They never have enough of them. Then it would make a supermarket like a live food hall and that would be awesome)

I’d also like for all my shopping data to be used to start learning my preferences, so that they could send me a weekly e-catalogue with personalised specials that I could just click on to add to my shopping list for downloading onto the trolley. It would also be nice if it eventually synced with some kind of recipe site, so I could just pull up a recipe and go “Add Ingredients to Shopping List”.

I guess the problem with all this stuff is that it will never really take off until most consumers are ones who have ‘grown up digital’. Otherwise consumers get frustrated that they can’t just do things the old way and lots of people can’t learn new technologies in an instant (I imagine the checkout staff will become ‘trolley trainers’).