Thursday, October 27, 2005

Group suggests using shopping-cart kiosks...

... among other things. Actually, this article from the Globe and Mail discusses many of the challenges that retail grocers are facing from customers whose busy lives prevent them from making bigger purchases every visit:
"There is an opportunity to do more and reach more consumers," says Rob Persico, strategy development director at Unilever Canada Inc., whose parent commissioned the massive trip-management study.

"If you can make that whole shopping experience easier and less time consuming, they'll come back."

He offers a few suggestions.

Stores should open more express checkout lanes at the hectic predinner period, they should provide small buggies that can pack in more products than a clunky handheld grocery basket -- and forget about charging shoppers 25 cents for a cart.

They should invest in "intelligent" carts with interactive screens that direct shoppers to products and automatically scan items; they should cluster items that go together, such as mayonnaise with lettuce; and they should display prepared meals at the front of the store.

Perisco goes on to make a number of other suggestions, some of which seem more practical (to me) than others, but he shows that the retail marketing industry isn't afraid to get creative or to utilize technology when marketing to customers in-store.

It's quite a good article; I recommend you go read it.

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