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Microsoft is now pushing the supermarket shopping cart into the age of digital advertising.
Microsoft spent 4 years working with MediaCart to develop a control panel with a screen installed on the shopping cart to help shoppers find the goods they need, scan and pay for the goods, saving customers waiting in line at the cashier time.
Microsoft last year acquired the online advertising company aQuantive for $600 million. Now the company can display video ads on the shopping cart screen.
Starting in the second half of 2008, the company plans to test the MediaCart shopping cart in the ShopRite supermarket of Wakefern Food Corp. Customers with a ShopRite membership card can log in to the website at home and enter their own shopping list.
When they arrive at the supermarket, wave their membership card in front of the MediaCart screen, and the shopping list will automatically be displayed on the screen. When a shopper scans the purchased products and places them in the shopping cart, the screen will automatically display the total price of the current products in the cart, and remove the scanned products from the shopping list.
Microsoft and MediaCart collaborate to develop RFID shopping cart
The system also uses RFID technology to sense where the shopping cart is in the store. RFID data can help ShopRite and food manufacturers understand the shopping patterns of customers, and RFID technology can also send specific advertisements to shoppers in specific areas of the supermarket. For example, when a customer enters the cookie area, an advertisement for Oreos cookies will be displayed on the screen; if the customer purchases Oreos cookies, an advertisement can save 50 cents. Microsoft is currently studying how to display coupons and advertisements.
Microsoft is also currently working with MediaCart and ShopRite to study how to help advertisers find potential customers based on customers’ buying habits.
“This is not an advertising bombardment for customers. We are marketing products in a targeted manner,” said Scott Ferris, general manager of Microsoft’s advertising and publishing solutions. “Our goal also includes improving the customer’s shopping experience.”
Through this system, advertisers can understand the effects of advertisements and coupons. Ferris said that consumers do not need to worry about the leakage of personal information, because Microsoft or any other advertisers do not have the right to obtain the information provided by customers when they join the supermarket membership program.
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