Touchpad computers become grocery cart dashboards

In today’s Springwise newsletter, one story featured a retail chain in China that is testing i-Pad-style computing devices attached to shopping carts.  Special offers and coupons are delivered in real time as one navigates the store.  Click here to see the story.

Implications:  We saw a similar device featured many years ago at the Food Marketing Institute’s exposition in Chicago (I think it was 2005).  In that case, one needed a USB jump drive to load software on their home computer… allowing the consumer to create a shopping list and retrieve coupons in similar fashion.  Now, technology has made all of that possible through the cloud.

In what ways might emerging technology change the way people shop your category?  Someone is thinking about it.  It might as well be you.

Mike Anderson, for the Elm Street Economics consumer trends blog. A service of The Center for Sales Strategy, Inc.