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Thursday, December 25, 2008

Designing Shopping Experience Using Technology

Hi guys

Now As Indians WE LOVE SWEETS & SNACKS :)

This can be checked from the lines of people at sweet shops  during festival season & range of sweets that we gift to each other. In any normal day too, many people can be seen at various sweet shops.

A Normal Sweet store experience in India is something like this:

 - Huge Waiting lines for ordering & at checkout (due to slow process) thereby hampering shopping experience of customers.

 - Paper receipts given by each ordering counter which in turn have to be submitted at checkout counter for payment.

-  People who want to buy less may not decide to purchase considering time taken to checkout.

- The whole place looks like a food market with less focus on flow of customers leaving visitors confused.

 

Now, I happen to visit Chitale sweets in Pune, India which is famous for its sweets & snacks.

Have I noticed anything.

Well yes, its the ordering techniques that these guys are using.

- Customer are given RFID embedded plastic bar when he enters.

- Customer takes that bar, goes to the respective counters & decide which sweet to buy

- Once he has decided he hands over this bar to the person at the counter who inputs what has been taken, quantity & price of the respective item,

- Once he his done with one counter the customer can go onto next counters and similarly do the same process incase he wants something else.

- Finally he goes to the payment counters and hands over the bar to the person who places the bar on a machine and checks what the customer has taken and how much to charge.

- The customer pays & walks out.


RFID BAR, Input of things purchased, Checkout

 

Benefits of system

- No paper involved, so saving the environment while using technology

- No need for handling different receipts of different counters & submitting at end. You just need to submit one bar.

- Works as a useful research tool for owners of shop to know what is being purchased as data is entered simultaneously.

- Proper flow is maintained in the shop reducing anxiety of users and thereby enhancing shopping experience

- Waiting times are drastically reduced as the processing gets faster(no need to input amount & quantity from various receipts), enhancing the user experience as well as processing more number of bills.

 

The technology has been developed by Chitale Digitals which is a sister concern of sweet shop. I checked with the owner & he mentioned they are using it for the past two years & right now an updated version is being developed.

Oh yes…..the bar can hold upto 11 transactions…..so you can purchase large number of sweets :)

 Useful example of designing a shopping experience using technology.

Thanks

Neeraj