Marsh Supermarkets and inMarket Launching First iBeacon Platform for Apple's Upcoming Watch

[wikiverse]

Why don't they use iBeacon for something useful...

Like validating my parking and opening the boom in the parking lot at a shopping centre.

Or an App at an art gallery or museum that streams audio info to my phone depending on where I am and what I'm looking at.

As long as these things are used for "promos" and advertising, they will be avoided like the plague.

Clearly these could be used for proximity based information distribution, and interactivity. They're basically just glorified QR codes being used for spam at the moment.

 

[arobert3434]

Sad

Isn't it sad that the first use of this technology in a grocery store is NOT to help customers find things but to blast them with ads?

Which even seems contrary to the interests of the store itself. With guidance, you can attract more customers to your store, whereas showing ads, besides being annoying, is "preaching to the converted" since the customer is obviously already in the store anyway to buy things.

And for pete's sake, if you are trying to use the localization data to show them an ad for a product they are standing next to, why not just put up a sign!

Sheesh.

 

[2457282]

Or to be fair, the Stepford Husbands.

Do you mean you've never been rammed in the supermarket by someone who was texting while shopping?

The problem with this tech isn't that it's really any spookier than what we've got going already. The problem is the lack of value added. Somebody will have to come up with a compelling reason for us to use it.

I use the apple reminder app to make a grocery list when I go shopping. However, it is never in the right order and I inevitably get to one end of the supermarket to find I missed something on the opposite end. If they build the app correctly, I could enter my list into the app in any order and as I pass the item category, I would be alerted. That would clearly make my way through the market more efficient and faster. Add the ability to scan and bag as I go, and Apple Pay at checkout and you have a killer app that would certainly be worth the occasional pop up ads.

 

[JohnArtist]

Bacon, the candy of meat

Maybe it was the first frame of the video that was showing (grocery store with food), but upon quickly reading the headline, I thought it had said "iBacon" at first.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I use the apple reminder app to make a grocery list when I go shopping. However, it is never in the right order and I inevitably get to one end of the supermarket to find I missed something on the opposite end. If they build the app correctly, I could enter my list into the app in any order and as I pass the item category, I would be alerted. That would clearly make my way through the market more efficient and faster. Add the ability to scan and bag as I go, and Apple Pay at checkout and you have a killer app that would certainly be worth the occasional pop up ads.

That would be a pretty significant technical lift since your list would have to be interpreted with accurate fuzzy logic to tell you where to find the item in the store, and of course the store would need to track the coordinates of every item they stock, or the aisle at a minimum. This will be tougher to implement than alerting you that you're about to pass a great price on bread in aisle 3, a special on canned tomatoes in aisle 4, and so on down every aisle of the store.

 

[2457282]

That would be a pretty significant technical lift since your list would have to be interpreted with accurate fuzzy logic to tell you where to find the item in the store, and of course the store would need to track the coordinates of every item they stock, or the aisle at a minimum. This will be tougher to implement than alerting you that you're about to pass a great price on bread in aisle 3, a special on canned tomatoes in aisle 4, and so on down every aisle of the store.

It would be a big lift, but what if as I enter aisle 3, I am alerted that Tuna and mayo from my list are in this aisle? and then I get a pop-up for a coupon on Starkis Tuna and Helman's Mayo. That is what I was thinking. But if it could actually flag me as I passed the tuna, that would be a huge win too and with enough beacons, not totally out of the question.

 

[IJ Reilly]

It would be a big lift, but what if as I enter aisle 3, I am alerted that Tuna and mayo from my list are in this aisle? and then I get a pop-up for a coupon on Starkis Tuna and Helman's Mayo. That is what I was thinking. But if it could actually flag me as I passed the tuna, that would be a huge win too and with enough beacons, not totally out of the question.

This is more complicated to pull off than it sounds, even with a lot of iBeacons. If you wrote "orange juice" on your list, how would the app know whether you want fresh or frozen? Much easier to implement and therefore more likely is the retailer pushing products at you through their loyalty programs. They are doing this already and no doubt would welcome an opportunity to push more of them at you as you shop. The question is whether we'd welcome this development. Personally, I would not.

 

[dontwalkhand]

That would be a pretty significant technical lift since your list would have to be interpreted with accurate fuzzy logic to tell you where to find the item in the store, and of course the store would need to track the coordinates of every item they stock, or the aisle at a minimum. This will be tougher to implement than alerting you that you're about to pass a great price on bread in aisle 3, a special on canned tomatoes in aisle 4, and so on down every aisle of the store.

Most stores such as Walmart when I worked there has every item in a location number specified and the system can tell you where items are down to the correct shelf location. (how else would a stocker know where things go?)

Other than the fuzzy logic the location problem is moot.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Most stores such as Walmart when I worked there has every item in a location number specified and the system can tell you where items are down to the correct shelf location. (how else would a stocker know where things go?)

Other than the fuzzy logic the location problem is moot.

How would that help iBeacon provide product locations to customers?

 

[dontwalkhand]

How would that help iBeacon provide product locations to customers?

I am sure a little extra signage is all that's needed, with the beacons linking up into the same database and system. Both Walmart and Target already offer item locations in their respective apps and it's worked for me 100% of the time. Tying this into the beacon shouldn't take much work other than installing the beacons and configuring them.