Wednesday, July 2, 2008

German supermarket introduces mobile phone shopping

A German supermarket chain has introduced a new chain of stores where customers can pay for their purchases with a specially adapted mobile telephone.

Real (pronounced REE-AL) has started "The Future Store" and the first one was recently opened near Duesseldorf.   When customers come into the store, they can pick up a specially adapted phone, and when they place something in their cart, they can just scan the barcode of the item with it.   The phone then just keeps a running total of their purchases, and when they are ready to pay, the device is inserted into a machine at the door, the price is automatically displayed and they can then pay with a credit card, bank card, or cash.

You can see an excellent BBC television report on the store here, including a guest appearance by Roger the Real Robot!

It wasn't that long ago that Kiltak mentioned another technological setup here in Germany - the automated restaurant in Nuernberg.   I'm hoping to get to that one very soon to test the food.

1 comment:

Kiltak said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.