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As a kid, I always wanted to be on the TV show "Supermarket Sweep."
In the middle of a Lowe's store in 2017, my dream almost came true. The home improvement retailer is rolling out an augmented-reality app that tells you the fastest way to find items on your list.
It's powered by Google's Tango, an indoor-mapping technology using special cameras to sense depth in 3D space. Measure objects, map a room and see virtual objects in the real world with augmented reality.
With a phone in one hand and a shopping cart in the other, I'm rushing around the aisles pulling items off the shelf. On screen I see a yellow line overlaid on the camera image, navigating me to the next item on my list. There's an aisle and shelf number in case I get really confused, as well as an estimate step counter that tells me how far I have to go.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by loic on Sunday March 19 2017, @07:03PM (1 child)
Supermarkets alleys are organized so that the customers spend plenty of time looking at products they were not actually going to buy. It is made to maximize the "oh, I need/want that too" effect. With such a Google tool where people would look constantly are their phones, it would just destroy the whole concept. It would be replaced with an offer you cannot refuse from Google and some tools to promote specific products, and most often products which could play nice with Google.
What is the point for supermarkets now that customer movement tracking (bluetooth/wifi) is ubiquitous? Looks like a way to make big and influent companies, with huge government (employment) and legal leverage, angry at you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Monday March 20 2017, @08:48AM
Have you not used Amazon?
Hey, you bought this, what about this?
Other people who bought this also bought this?
Why not buy these three related things together for a slightly reduced price?
You added this to your basket? Others also bought this?
And, besides that, Amazon is the most dangerous place in the world. If I'm bored, I click Today's Deals and flick through. Though I don't regret a single product I've ever bought that way (because usually they've piqued my interest enough to buy either that or a slightly better model once I know such things exist), several times I've filled up my basket with unrelated gumph, only to realise that I only came on to browse, or to buy a single item.
Of course, then you end up adding it to your wishlist or "Save for Later", and then you realise that forever after it's lingering precariously just under your current basket all the time, just tempting you.
Impulse buying is real, yes, but impulse buying online is so much easier and more convenient.