Off my trolley

Although a distant memory already, the holiday season saw me in a supermarket for the first time in a while and the experience was not a pleasant one. It was not the crowded aisles teeming with frenzied fellow consumers that were the main source of my frustration, but the lowly, technology-abandoned shopping trolley.

As if getting a trolley was not enough of a challenge in late December, the struggle really began only once I had bagged one. I soon discovered it was one of those trolleys with a mind of its own. I am sure you know the type I mean. You push one way and it goes another.

After a few minutes of wrestling my way along the aisles, nursing my damaged shins and battling to find any prices, I decided I was definitely off my wayward trolley and it occurred to me that technology had somehow failed the ordinary consumer.

At the very least, a 21st century shopping trolley should provide information on the price, store location and availability of products.

Warwick Ashford, portal managing editor

While point of sale and other retail systems have developed in leaps and bounds in recent years, technology has largely bypassed the shopping trolley, bringing little innovation or improvement since the things were first introduced around 70 years ago. Some may have added capacity or a more comfortable baby chair, but the only real improvement has been the switch to plastic.

Although plastic trolleys may solve some of the issues associated with the still ubiquitous metal ones such as buckled frames and sharp edges, the problem of errant and wayward wheels is still largely unresolved and little has been added to improve the overall shopping experience.

In an era where marketing is all experiences, why has the shopping trolley been overlooked?

While there seems to be an enormous amount of research and development going into improving shopping carts for online retailers, the real world equivalent remains sadly neglected. Online retailers can choose from at least 10 different kinds of shopping cart software, but in the real world, there is nowhere near that kind of choice. One trolley is much like another. Useless.

It stands to reason that with online shoppers still very much in the minority, technologists should be spending more time and effort on improving real world trolleys before they worry about perfecting the virtual variety.

A good trolley would go a long way to improving the overall shopping experience. What's needed is not a bigger, better basket on wheels, but a useful shopping tool for accessing information and services.

At the very least, a 21st century shopping trolley should provide information on the price, store location and availability of products. In other words, it should function in much the same way as its online equivalent. This would include keeping a running total of the cost of all the goods selected and enabling faster, self-service payment.

The smart trolley would also keep track of a shopping list loaded wirelessly from a mobile phone or PDA. This information could be used for plotting routes to follow through the supermarket to ensure nothing is missed and that frozen goods are loaded last, for example.

Expanding on the concept of the shopping trolley as an information and services platform, shoppers could access online buyers' guides and other product information, keep up to date with e-mail and reschedule appointments. They could even communicate with the deli and bakery to place orders that could be picked up along the way without queuing.

If this all sounds like science fiction, it shouldn't because most of this could be achieved with existing technology. Almost all of this is virtually a reality thanks to the research and development being done by Germany's Metro group, which is one of the largest retailers in the world.

The key to enabling this kind of state-of-the-art shopping is radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, but the problem is that RFID is still far from mainstream despite all the media hype.

Although Metro has already implemented RFID technology in six of its warehouses and 25 stores in Germany, the company admits that everything is still in trial phase. It doesn't seem that will change until read rates of 100% are achieved and RFID tags drop from around 24 US cents to one cent or less, which Metro expects to happen only in 10 to 15 years.

Unfortunately, we have to get real about the fact that the supermarket industry around the world runs on very narrow margins. For this reason, RFID technology is unlikely to be introduced to the mass market until RFID tags cost a fraction of the price of the goods they are being used to tag.

Implementations of RFID-enabled systems may be some years away, but that does not necessarily mean all is lost on the trolley front. Other, less expensive technology could and should be applied to deliver a better shopping trolley.

Apart from a decent set of wheels that did not squeak, rattle or wobble and user-friendly plastic moulding that could not inflict any nasty wounds on innocent bystanders or immobilise the wheels with rust, a built-in bar code scanner would be top of my wish list. It's one of the sorely needed improvements that could be implemented immediately.

Some UK supermarket chains already provide shoppers with handheld scanners and building them into shopping trolleys is arguably the next logical step. There is no point to bar coding for shoppers if they are unable to read the price of goods. Shelf labels are seldom up to date or legible, so a bar code scanner is often a necessity.

A braking system would also be another good idea. The luggage trolleys at many airports have a simple, but effective mechanism that ensures the trolley will not move unless the push bar is gripped firmly to release the brake. A similar system would prevent many accidental car bashings. It would also make it much easier to unload the trolleys in parking areas that are often far from level. Anyone who's ever chased a trolley careening away from them will agree.

Cost is still bound to be an issue, but for an improved shopping experience through using a good, serviceable shopping trolley with a bar code scanner, I would be willing to pay. Wouldn't you?