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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Nov 14th 2001 11:12am





Philips Unveils Home Shopping Device

from the ok,-first,-let's-take-two-failed-ideas... dept

Here's a strange one. Philips today unveiled a home grocery shopping device. It lets you scan in bar codes of groceries you've bought to build a regular "shopping list". That list can then be sent to or downloaded by a grocery store for pickup or home delivery. As far as I can tell, this basically takes two horribly failed ideas (home shopping appliances and internet grocery delivery) and combines them. Either the combination will create a third failed idea (probably) or maybe it fills in the gaps of what both of the original services were missing. It would help if the device actually had some grocery store partners, which it doesn't, so the argument might not matter at all. I do wonder how they would convince anyone to pay for the devices upfront, though. Is grocery shopping such a pain that you would pay for a device to help you with it? I don't think it's a huge market.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Looks like...

    identicon
    Ed, Nov 14th, 2001 @ 11:48am

    ...an attempt to leverage the Pronto remote control (which is a great idea that falls a bit short in the real world). The physical similarities are apparent, so I'd imagine that this would cost about the same (about $200, down from $400).
    I agree that it faces similar problems as Webvan in that people don't want or need to change the way they shop for groceries. Two problems I see: 1) I don't necessarily want the same brand of charcoal briquets each time; I'll take what's on sale, but UPC codes are product-specific. 2) When I add something to the shopping list is when I don't have any of it left. I've probably already thrown out the package, so how can I scan it.
    But the only thing that really nauseates me is the word "e-pliance" that Philips is using to describe the thing. Ugh.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    CueCat

    identicon
    david rosen, Nov 14th, 2001 @ 11:48am

    Probably hack a cuecat to do this for free if its not already been done

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Depending On The Price...

    identicon
    MLO, Nov 15th, 2001 @ 8:30am

    ....I'd pay money for it. Not a lot mind you, but sure, I'd fork up some dough.

    I have precious little time to grocery shop during the week, and I'd prefer to do fun stuff during the weekend. Also, I hate to shop. Even for clothes.

    So yeah, if there was a device out there that would help automate this process, I'd look into it.

    MLO

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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