There Will Be No Waiting in Line In a Mobile Environment
August 27th, 2008 by Paul Wright
Waiting in lines, we all have to suffer through it from time to time. Waiting in waiting rooms, waiting to fall asleep, waiting in check-out lines, waiting for the elevator or is there anything worse – waiting in traffic. According to an NPR report, the average American spends two to three years of his or her life waiting in line. Well it seems as though technology may be able to help cut into that wait time via a device you most likely have on you at this very moment… a cell phone.
Metro Group, Germany’s largest retailer and a pioneer when it comes to technology in retail, considers one of the most important technology innovations in retail is what is called the Mobile Shopping Assistant (MSA), a software application that turns a customer’s cell phone into a scanning and information device. Using their phone’s auto-focus camera, shoppers can scan products as they shop keeping a running total. Adding additional convenience, the MSA can also be used to tap into the Internet and find specific products in a store, call up product information or to develop shopping lists. The MSA is similar to handheld devices used by U.S. retailers like Stop & Shop and Food Lion but the big difference is that the MSA system uses the shopper’s own cell phone whereas the handheld devices are provided to shoppers by the retailers.
Once finished shopping, shoppers can go to a special check-out lane and use cell phones configured for Near Field Communication (NFC) to make a payment by simply holding their cell phone near a detection device according to Cara Hopkins of SuperMarket News. How cool is that!
tagged: , Check Outs, Phones, technology