Microsoft (MSFT) looks to revolutionize your grocery shopping
Posted by: in Products and ServicesFiled under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Marketing and advertising, Technology
Microsoft is looking to revolutionize the way grocery stores are able to communicate with their shoppers. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is rolling out MediaCart consoles later this year that’ll let grocery stores send advertisements to consumers depending on where they are located in their stores.
The basic concept behind the new MediaCart consoles is that users are able to log into a website from their home, enter a shopping list, and have that list waiting for them on a shopping cart when they get to the store. The first of these mediacarts will be in ShopRite supermarkets on the East Coast later this year. For shoppers that have a ShopRite loyalty card, they’ll be able to get on the web at home and enter their shopping lists. Once they hit the stores, they’ll then be able to swipe their cards into the MediaCart, and their list will magically appear.
The carts will be able to keep track of items as they are gathered and will even keep track of the consumer’s running bill as well as give them the option to pay for their merchandise without having to wait in the checkout line. I’m not really sure how this would work with weighed items such as produce, but I’m sure Microsoft has thought of this as well.
Where it gets really interesting is that the carts will use radio-frequency identification to keep track of where the cart is located inside the store. With this knowledge, the console will be able to serve up advertisements to shoppers based on their location. Pretty nice idea I think. Suppose you’re walking down the salad dressing aisle… the device could show you advertisements of which brands are on sale.
MediaCart will also be able to store consumers’ past buys in order to send them targeted advertisements the next time that they go shopping.
We are definitely a culture that is submerged in advertisements. Everywhere you look you’re hit with ads… television, radio, websites, billboards… everywhere. I guess it only makes sense that our shopping carts should join the list of advertising outlets. After all, you can’t find a much more targeted group of shoppers to serve up a milk ad to than one presently standing in front of the grocery store cooler.
[photo : yananine]
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer
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