By Andrew Liszewski
For advertisers there’s nothing like a captive audience, and that’s probably the biggest reason this MediaCart might actually catch on. It’s a high-tech take on the shopping cart that incorporates a large LCD display on the front of the cart, with a set of controls on the handle. While the cart attempts to sell the consumer on the idea with promises of store searches, instant price checks and lists of what’s on sale, we all know it will be the advertisers that will make this thing a real success. Because who doesn’t want to spend their time at the grocery store watching commercials while they battle other shoppers for the last box of Stove Top Stuffing?
The MediaCart is powered by WindowsCE (insert tired joke about bluescreens and/or crashes) and as a result it looks like Microsoft itself is getting behind the idea, which can’t hurt its chances. And besides helping consumers and advertisers, the MediaCart can actually be beneficial to the store itself, since the system can track the motion of all the carts, providing insight into where shoppers spend the most time. (Or even what areas of the store shoppers are avoiding.)
[ MediaCart ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]
And, ya know, you never see homeless folks pushing around shopping carts so strapping $600 (or whatever) PC onto them is a good idea. Somehow.
Oh yeah, great. That’s all we need! Like the lady who isn’t paying attention to where she’s driving her cart isn’t already distracted by all the advertisements all over the store, now we need to give them a reason to be staring at a little TV at the end of their cart the whole shopping trip? Get your armored heels out folks, I see a lot of carts smashing into the back of your feet.
I hope to god they don’t put sound on those little TV ad things either, I already want to bash the talking advertisement gas pumps in with my tire iron…if it weren’t for them being so explosive and all.
Ugh.
In Virginia (probably other places as well) Martin’s grocery store uses a handheld scanner that shows the item price and calculates your total at the bottom of the display. It’s really convenient as you can bag you items while shopping and go through quick checkout to scan you total at the register and pay without wasting time taking items out of the cart to scan individually. I wish more places were like that.