–Contributed by Vivin

Retail on the road to getting Hi-tech. In India medium and small sized retailers, along with the big players, are fast taking the technology route. Companies like IBM and Oracle are developing new software to simplify a customer transaction and generate most data out of customer touch point. The recently POS range launched by IBM is a step forward in helping the retailers to organise their business and get useful insights about their customers – like their buying habits, frequency of purchase and so on. But looking at the west it still seems like a long way to go. A newly designed shopping cart, that will be used by super markets in London, would now measure the amount of unhealthy food that you purchase. This cart would automatically warn you about the total number of calories that you purchase. It would have a small internally fitted chip inside to tell you the nutritional component vs the unhealthy aspects of that product.

Now here’s the point which probably these supermarkets did not pay much attention to. Is this value added service going to help them achieve better sales? For once it would definitely help in attracting more crowd to the store, but would they still buy as much as they had bought if this high tech cart not there? Assuming you are in such a situation where in as soon as you reach for you favorite Cola, cheese, wafers or cookies and some mouth watering cake, pie or candy, your shopping cart starts beeping or signaling a red light. Do you still buy it? Surely some of us would but not as much as we had planned.

Its certainly a smart invention but it’s got only a small chunk of the market to cater to. This cart might work in a store selling only healthy or nutritious food. With the technology continuously re-inventing itself there is a lot more to look forward to. But the retailers should not fall prey to every new technology that comes in the market, because it might turn unfruitful for them in the long run or just leave them without any fruits to keep up their health.