Shop-Rite Piloting CRM Smartcarts
Written by Evan SchumanThe Shop-Rite regional grocery chain is piloting smartcarts that show different ads depending on a consumer’s shopping history and current shopping lists, the chain confirmed this week.
ShopRite, a 47,000-employee chain with about 200 stores in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, began the 9-month pilot last Spring, a ShopRite statement said. The announcement was made during this week’s National Retail Federation show in New York.
The carts, jointly crafted by Microsoft and MediaCart Holdings, use consumers’ loyalty cards to grab the historic shopping data and the uploaded shopping lists and deliver data back to consumer goods manufacturers about ad performance, by comparing ads displayed with the ultimate customer purchases. That last part is easy to track because the carts assist directly with checkout.
MediaCart said the carts also deliver electronic coupons, do comparative price checks, locate products within the store and display updated store specials. The carts also show recipe and nutritional information and displaying "an electronic shopping list (which the consumer can create at home on a PC) that is presented in aisle order, totaling the cost of the items in their baskets before checkout," the companies said.
-Marc
January 18th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
This is a great product for assisting the shopper in the store. It also presents an opportunity for the store to sell advertising space right in front of the shopper. Specific brands and manufacturers can make their spot-light products more visible.
But, at what cost? Will there be a limited number of carts in each store? I wonder how well these carts will survive outside in the winter?
My assumption is that there will have to be special lines so the unused carts can be recharged and retrieval in the parking lots will have to be at more increased frequency to minimize theft and vandalism.