Getting Smart

High-tech shopping carts offer a glimpse into the future of food retailing.

With smartphones as common as running shoes and jeans, enabling technology has migrated to the sphere of supermarketing in the emerging generation of shopping carts known as “smart carts.”

Indeed, Korean communications giant SK Telecom has adopted that name for its Smart Cart, which allows users to enter a shopping list into a smartphone. In-store, the Smart Cart, which contains an Internet-enabled tablet, communicates with the smartphone via an application to download the shopping list, and then lets the user know which items on the list are on sale and quickly directs the shopper to them. Furthermore, the built-in tablet shows advertisements for discounts and informs the user which other items are on sale, in addition to those on the shopping list.

In Austin, Texas, feisty Chaotic Moon Studios has gone SK Telecom one better by naming its smart cart the Smarter Cart. According to CEO Ben Lamm: “Putting a tablet on something doesn’t make it smart, it just adds a screen. The real value comes with the software behind it. Having said that, our Smarter Cart isn’t just the best smart cart, it’s really the only one I would qualify as having intelligence.”

With the expansion of AmazonFresh, Lamm says, and the pockets of success being seen with online or hybrid grocery stores across Asia and Europe, supermarket locations are under pressure to step up and deliver on a seamless, integrated shopping experience.

“Most people in this industry are taking new technologies — apps, RFIDs [radio frequency identification] — and tacking them on, piecemeal,” Lamm admits. “The one thing that won’t change about the in-store experience, and that stays with you throughout your entire trip, is the cart, so you should be able to do everything you need to do at the grocery store with it. It should be your personal grocery concierge. At least, that’s the approach we took.”

Chaotic Moon’s cart comes equipped with a Windows tablet to sync with shopping lists, give the user product information and enable in-store wayfinding. “We included a custom Kinect for voice and gesture controls, so you can ask your cart about a product you point to, or tell it to find something for you,” Lamm says. The cart also uses a Parallax Eddie robotics platform for self-propelled navigation, and leverages the Kinect’s skeletal recognition so that the cart will follow the user around, “and not some guy down the aisle,” as Lamm puts it.

“Finally, there’s an RFID reader and UPC-scanning technology that sends information to the tablet, keeps track of your shopping list and makes checkout pretty painless,” he adds.

However, Lamm cautions that “a truly ‘smart’ cart also needs a ‘smart’ store. If stores RFID-tag their products, the cart screen can display product information, nutrition labels and recipe recommendations. And that’s just the beginning. The key to making the whole experience smarter is getting the information out of individual silos — the products, the storeroom, the cash registers — and into one place where you can identify patterns, make better business decisions and pass that value on to your customers.”

As physical stores are competing with online grocers, Lamm observes, they need to apply some of the same luxuries customers have come to expect in other retail experiences, as well as leverage technologies to make their operations more efficient. “A smart cart is just one piece of that puzzle,” he says, “just like your smartphone is just a device.”

Getting Personal

In keeping with Lamm’s belief that a smart cart should be a personal grocery concierge, Toronto-based Springboard Retail Networks Inc. has christened its smart cart accordingly. The Concierge smart cart is a standard shopping cart with an 8.4-inch water-resistant, shatterproof touchscreen monitor mounted on the handle.

Using Adobe Flash and Microsoft software, the cart is activated by a swipe of a loyalty card or a punch-in of a personalized access key, which connects to the store’s wireless in-store network and a variety of features. Displayed on the screen is the interactive store flyer highlighting the week’s specials, sales and promotions. Alongside the flyer is a banner showcasing featured promotions, all based on the user’s current location in the store.

Along with location-based promotions, the Concierge recommends recipes that go well with the products being placed in the cart, and even offers a recipe library that can be accessed on the screen.

A navigation system recognizes shopping patterns from previous visits and can make suggestions based on them. And throughout the entire store visit, items can be scanned as they’re put in the Concierge cart, keeping a running total.

Even IBM is pushing a smart cart. The IBM Personal Shopping Assistant, dubbed the Shopping Buddy, is the result of IBM Global Business Services, IBM Research and IBM Retail Store Solutions teaming with Quincy, Mass.-based Cuesol, an IBM business partner.

The Shopping Buddy, according to Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, consists of a data management system, Wi-Fi network, infrared technology, and Bluetooth transmission centered on touchscreen computers mounted on shopping cart handles. It uses the IBM Store Integration Framework, IBM WebSphere Application Server, IBM WebSphere MQ messaging software, IBM Tivoli management software and IBM Mobile Tablet for retail, as well as Cuesol’s Cart Companion browser software.

In practice, customers scan in their loyalty cards to activate a familiar web-style screen with a variety of display options, including sale items or a list of products shoppers buy most frequently. A location-tracking system monitored through ceiling-mounted beacons enables the retailer to pinpoint shoppers’ locations and deliver relevant real-time information as they move through the store.

The system integrates with the company’s backend system, so buying histories and favorite items can be displayed on the screen as a constant reminder of products to buy. The device also lets shoppers order cold cuts from the deli, sending an alert when the order is ready. An attached imaging scanner invites consumers to scan items as they place them in the cart, keeping a running total along the way and completing their transaction using IBM self-checkout systems.

IBM is exploring ways to refine the Shopping Buddy with customer-sensitive features such as suggesting a wine to go with a meal or providing dietary guidance on specific items. Also, ads targeted to individual consumers, based on their prior purchases, in the precise environment where they’re primed to make a purchase, are another possibility for the IBM device.

So the time is coming, it would seem, when grocery shopping begins with booting up the shopping cart — the smart cart.

“The one thing that won’t change about the in-store experience, and that stays with you throughout your entire trip, is the cart, so you should be able to do everything you need to do at the grocery store with it.”
— Ben Lamm, Chaotic Moon Studios