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Tesco to Trial Trolley Dash Maps
Article by: rob brady
Date: 24 May 2011
It looks like those of us who hate supermarket shopping may be in for a bit of good news. Does tapping in your shopping list on your phone and following the quickest route round your local Tescos sound good to you?
Anything that replaces my headless chicken impersonation - madly dashing around the aisles and getting nowhere fast - gets the thumbs up from me. As the Tesco tagline goes "Every Little Helps."
Tesco has announced it will soon be trialling store mapping and routing in the Tesco Extra outlet in Romford. It hopes, if the pilot is successful (please, please!), to roll out the system nationwide.
I appreciate those who shop regularly at the same familiar store will scoff, but occasional shoppers who use multiple stores are likely to welcome the app.
Nick Lansley, Head of Research and Development at Tesco.com, says: “The new service is able to show you where all your wanted products are on a store map, show you where you are on that map, and guide you round the store to pick up your products using the shortest route.”
The trial will only be available to Android users (version 2.2 or above) and volunteers are now being recruited. To take part in the Romford beta stage, write to ben.martin@techfortesco.com with subject "satnav app" for further instructions.
| Comments
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 Posted by Andy_P on Tue May 24, 2011 12:15 pm |
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It's a man thing!
I spend hours wandering aimlessly round supermarkets looking for things that NEVER seem to fit into an obvious department.
But women somehow seem to have inbuilt guidance systems for this sort of thing, I find!
"Settling in nicely" ;-) |
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| Posted by Pirate3000 on Tue May 24, 2011 1:36 pm |
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Why not iphone users????
this tesco is my local and already is using a trial of the use of diy scanner shopping.
I would love to trial this and see just how good it is...
Sad maybe?
Not Lost Yet!! But Jane is always there to help
***********
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| Posted by ripeda on Tue May 24, 2011 1:57 pm |
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Not really a map though is it? In the very looses terms I suppose.
Its just a digitised store lay out. And how are you going to be able to use it realistically. If your thinking you inport it into your SatNav then forget it because remember when you step inside these metal monsters of Tesco stores any signal for anything useful, GPS or voice, disappears when you take more than 5 paces inside the store.
Don't get me wrong..... good idea Tesco but unless you're investing in technology to allow us to really make this useful so we can use it with our SatNav's then maybe a printed map we can pickup at the store entrance might have worked just as well.
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| Posted by Darren on Tue May 24, 2011 3:19 pm |
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If it is a digitised store layout then it's a map. If it will be able to provide you with an optimised path through the store once input with your shopping list then I'm all for it. I hate having to double back because butter isn't in the milk aisle of créme fraiche isn't in the same area as cream.
And I struggle to see how you could be provided with an optimum route with a paper store guide?
No-one has even seen the app yet so isn't it a little premature to be criticising it? Let's give them some credit for looking at this at least.
Darren Griffin |
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| Posted by Darren on Tue May 24, 2011 3:53 pm |
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They have a blog post here that says:
| Quote: | | The new service is able to show you where all your wanted products are on a store map, show you where you are on that map, and guide you round the store to pick up your products using the shortest route. |
It sounds quite interesting and whilst I doubt it's using GPS, it may be something like WiFi triangulation.
Darren Griffin |
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| Posted by tipso_calipso on Tue May 24, 2011 4:39 pm |
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| Pirate3000 Wrote: | Why not iphone users????
this tesco is my local and already is using a trial of the use of diy scanner shopping.
I would love to trial this and see just how good it is...
Sad maybe? |
Why not Android first? Iphone is the first choice of so many developers, but Android is the fastest growing mobile OS at the moment. Besides, Tesco is a budget supermarket so why wouldn't they go for the cheaper choice? It's actually quite refreshing to see a trial that isn't iPhone.
It's just a shame it won't show lazy mongoloids where to return their trolley's to when they're done!
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| Posted by MaFt on Tue May 24, 2011 7:37 pm |
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| Pirate3000 Wrote: | Why not iphone users????
this tesco is my local and already is using a trial of the use of diy scanner shopping.
I would love to trial this and see just how good it is...
Sad maybe? |
Can't find the interview right now [edit to add: it's in the link darren posted above] but it's basically cos the beta test process on Android is far easier than the iOS method. I.e. they can email a file to install to android far easier than they can the iOS ones with provisioning file and a limit of 100 testers...
MaFt
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| Posted by mrfrank on Tue May 24, 2011 10:35 pm |
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So are we saying we will get free wifi too in Tescos? he he ;)
Cheers!!
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| Posted by MaFt on Wed May 25, 2011 8:29 am |
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no, you can have an access point without having internet connection. one of my local pub's has wifi although it's only used for the waiting staff's "buzzers" and no internet.
MaFt
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