Shop-and-scan

Thu Feb 05 2004

shop-and-scanIt's an idea whose time has come. Jewel-Osco's newish supermarket at Roosevelt & Wabash in Chicago has installed a shop-and-scan system, which shoppers use to ring up their groceries as they pick them off the shelf. While I'm not necessarily a fan of technologies that cut out good ole' human interaction, this system is so freaking useful that I can live with not getting to say hi to a checker again.

How it works is: you scan your registered Jewel Preferred Customer Card1 at the Shop-and-Scan station by the entrance, and the computer assigns you a scanner gun which is wirelessly connected to the store's computer. You are now a walking cash register, and when you decide you want to buy something, you just scan it. Because the system is keyed to your Preferred Card, you automatically get the sale prices on everything. If you decide you don't want something, you can press a delete key, re-scan the item to confirm and just put it back. When you're done shopping, you check the scanner gun back in and go through a self-checkout station to pay and bag. Then again, if you're like me, you used the pre-bagging station in the back of the store so really you just have to swipe your debit card and walk out.

There's obviously a time savings involved, but the biggest advantage is getting to see a running total of your order -- with sales tax and discounts already figured in -- as you shop. So if you look down and see that (ohmigod!) you're spending a few hundred dollars more than you planned to, you can just un-scan and put back those bottles of Dom Perignon.

What this really accomplishes is not so much saving you more time so that you can resume your busy schedule of soccer-momming or porn-watching, but getting your sixty-seven-item ass out of line to make more room for the rest of us. I may not love small talk with the checkers, but I love standing in line behind an old lady with a million jars of gefilte fish even less. Let's just say that of all the solutions to that problem involving a pistol grip, I'm glad it's this one.

I will also note that this particular Jewel store has a low-ceilinged, pleasantly lit feel that I find quite enjoyable. I hereby demand that Jewel/Osco/Albertsons management alter reality to place this Jewel on the empty lot across the street from me, and move the empty lot way the fuck out Roosevelt.

And if that means that Daley has to convince Harrods to open a store on Roosevelt Road, so much the better.

1 The Jewel-Osco version of the now-ubiquitous supermarket discount card, by which you become a source of marketing data in exchange for surprisingly good prices on food. The registration part is specific to Shop-and-Scan; you have to provide an up-to-date phone number and sign a form accepting the terms & conditions of the service before they'll let you have a scanner gun.