Stop & Shop is testing 1,000 carts with wireless computers to allow customers to e-mail their grocery list to the store and call it up on their cart’s screen.

The “Shopping Buddy” also lists what shoppers bought on their last trip, notifies them a product is on sale as they enter the aisle, where it’s stocked, creates personalized coupons as they approach an item and allows customers to place a deli order and get a message when it’s ready.

In the future, these smart carts would provide personal shopping assistance as: meal planning, sorted by such things as category, favorites, diet type, or preparation time, with supporting content such as health notes, wine information, consumer ratings and gift suggestions, etc.

Ultimately, the personal shopping assistants will allow shoppers to pay at the cart.

IBM, which is creating the carts’ computers, forecasts that they might cost something between $2,000 and $3,000. Regular old supermarket carts cost about $100 each.

Via The Raw Feed < Sea Coast Online.
Further details in IBM Press Release.