Shopping Your Way: GPS Makes Shopping Easier

Grocery shopping may get much easier soon. No more maneuvering a clumsy cart through crowded grocery store aisles searching for the items on your list. Getting groceries and more could be as quick as picking up a pizza at a fast food drive-through window, thanks to GPS locators.

Where is the Buyer?

Stores already track customer purchases through savings cards attached to individual accounts and through customer responses to email and text messaging. GPS tracking of a customer’s physical location is just another extension of marketing convenience to shoppers.

To further attract customers, grocery stores could release an app that shoppers could download onto a GPS device. The app would broadcast the location of the shopper in relation to the store. Based upon the proximity, workers would know when to get the customer’s previously purchased order ready for direct pickup.

Where is My Food?

Ideally, the order process would begin when the customer places an order online through a mobile phone and pays for it. The order is received by the store and placed on hold.

In order for speedy delivery to take place, the person placing the order must first download an app to her GPS enabled phone or device. Once the store’s receiver detects the GPS position of the phone and its user, it would alert customer care associates in the correct department. The workers would then compile the list of desired items and place them at the store’s checkout area at the front of the store. The customer can then enter the store and find her package of goods already bagged and ready to go.The merchandise would already have been paid for on a mobile device, so there would be no need to do anything more except to thank the worker.

Where is This System?

The get-in, get-out shopping experience is not yet available in the U.S., but is under development in one or more European countries. While some Asian companies already offer home grocery delivery, none yet meet the personalized shopping experience that is made possible by GPS phone broadcast and store receivers. Quick orders based upon your location and schedule are sure to make shopping a breeze.

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Shopping Your Way: GPS Makes Shopping Easier