Scan And Pay for Groceries With Your iPhone at Stop & Shop
Posted in: iPhone, nfc, Phones, Today's Chili
Scan It! Lets you shop with your iPhone
Shoppers in U.S supermarket chain Stop & Shop can use their iPhones to scan and pay for their groceries. A new app from Modiv, called Scan It!, uses the customer’s loyalty card and camera to do the work historically done by underpaid humans.
You know how self checkout usually makes you want to throw your shopping onto the floor and storm out with a cloud of red mist swirling around you? First, the damn scanner won’t work, and this is even more stressful as there is a line forming behind you. Then you need to follow the byzantine instructions designed for trained professionals, not casual shoppers. Then your credit card won’t work. It’s maddening.
With Scan It!, you scan the barcode of your loyalty card and go shopping. As you scan the groceries, the total is totted up for you. You bag items as you go and, when you’re done, the app sends the details to the store’s computers. When you reach a register, you scan the loyalty card, pay as usual and leave.
It’s a simple extension of Stop & Shop’s existing handsets, made much easier with your phone. and of course you’ll be happy to know that personalized offers will spam your iPhone constantly.
If Apple gets around to adding an NFC chip to upcoming iPhones, which will allow direct, contactless payments from the phone itself, then you could — in theory — shop, scan and pay, all without visiting a checkout at all. And this may in turn lead to TSA-style security setups at the door to check your honesty. I can’t wait.
Scan It! product page [Modiv via MIT Technology Review and Counternotions]
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