“Shop happy!” is the motto at Bloom, a new chain of grocery stores recently unveiled by supermarket giant Food Lion. Bloom has incorporated both innovative technologies and customer-friendly practices to create ‘a different kind of grocery store’. With a swipe of their Bloom Breeze Cards, shoppers can get personal scanners to carry about the store, scanning items and bagging them right in their carts as they shop.
The scanners provide a running tally of how much customers are spending, so they can be mindful of their budgets. Scanners also allow Bloom to send instant messages to customers, alerting them when prescriptions have been filled or their deli orders are ready for pick-up. When they're ready to check out, shoppers simply go to any check-out lane and scan an “end of trip” barcode and the order automatically downloads to a register, so there's no need to unload and reload the cart. Which brings the average checkout time down to 32.7 seconds. (There are random checks to make sure nobody is cheating the system.)
Based on nearly two years of consumer research and analysis, Bloom stores also feature customer-friendly aisle layouts, kiosks for downloading recipe ideas or learning about wine selections, 20-minute parking spots and more. There are even interactive information stations to help shoppers easily track down items on their shopping lists. Currently based on the east coast of the United States, there are 52 Bloom locations in Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina, with plans to convert and rebrand dozens more Food Lion stores. Of course, Bloom isn't the only supermarket making use of hand-held scanners and other technological advances. However, the combination of technology and implementing the industry’s best practices is something other retailers should take note of.
Website: www.shopbloom.com
Contact: www.shopbloom.com/howcanyoubloom/contactus.aspx
Spotted by: Jennifer Weyand
Another great idea. In general I am against technology that reduces human contact and displaces jobs, but I find myself being a big fan of self-checkouts as they avoid the manhandling of my groceries that seems all-too-common in my local supermarkets.
This sounds a lot like the year-old pilot program being run by the Stop & Shop supermarket chain called Shopping Buddy. Stop & Shop seems to be mostly in the New England area.
http://www.stopandshop.com/stores/shopping_buddy.htm
Surely this could be combined with intelligent packaging to avoid the random checks? The in-store computer would register your purchases and match them against a reading of what you are actually taking out of the store, taken from an exit "scan". There are already electronic gates registering magnetic tags so this wouldn't come as a shock to consumers.
Payment could be taken straight form your account using your pre-registered details.
In an ideal world this wouldn't mean a "staffless" supermarket, but one where trained staff could provide help, advice and sample to consumers. No doubt this more personalised service could command a premium and have a positive effect on sales.
Maybe I am just daydreaming...
Wow.. In Sweden and scandinavia we have had these kind of scanners for about 5 years now.. :) And it´s a hit over here!
Even here in New Zealand this concept is already in use for a number of years in the low end super market chain Pak 'n' Save. So nothing new under thesun.
Hi Adam, Gustaf and Mark -- As we mentioned in the article, Bloom isn't the only supermarket using handheld scanners. However, we liked the combination of tech and a number of best practices from the supermarket industry: the features listed above, plus wide aisles, low shelves, no point of purchase advertising, etc, topped off with fresh branding. We were looking at the total package here. :)
Could you please tell me the name of supermarkets that are using handheld scanners in Europe and Australia or even Asia?
Oliver: An easy (and more effective) way to prevent customers from being dishonest about their purchases without having to randomly check their bags would be to use RFID tags on products to verify that the cart contains only what the customer scanned.