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Klever
selected The Market in Park City, Utah as its demonstration store for
the new Giving Cart system. The Market is a modern
well
maintained grocer with many specialty items cat erring to the tastes of
the local population. They operate in competition with nearby
Albertsons, who has the advantage of being located on the main road
into Park City. The Manager, Mike Holm, was interested in
increasing market share, and therefore, was open to trying the new
Giving Cart shopping cart system.
From February to August, KMI dedicated its efforts to engineering and
building a new shopping cart device taking advantage of current
technology. We wanted a hand held unit the customer could
interact with that could also be placed in a holder on the cart when
the customer needed to be hands free. With the clarity of color
screen graphics available today, we found a screen slightly larger than
an Iphone or similar device was ideal. We included a scanner so
the customer could check the price of a product before purchase.
Scanning is also a necessary precursor to electronic checkout in the
next phase where customers will have the option of scanning their own
goods and paying at the cashier counter without the items having to be
rescanned by the cashier. This feature will relieve customers #1
complaint of standing in long lines at grocery checkout.
 The Giving Cart device
also contains a store directory to allow faster,
more efficient shopping, recipes to look up the ingredients of popular
dishes, and advertisements for store specials, including store brand
products, which is particularly attractive to retail grocers.
Local weather, news and time are also available – all of which
were requested by customers.
The most significant feature is the triggered digital advertisements
that appear as customers approach the product on the aisle
shelves. Using KMI’s patented Point-of Selection®
technology, 30 to 50 short (7-10second) video advertisements are
triggered as the customer approaches the product. The ads can be
general about the product or offer store discounts. The ability
to offer ads at this immediate point in the store where the customer is
making a product decision is unique and highly desired by package goods
manufacturers.
KMI has teamed with Time Domain, Inc. to provide the in-store location
technology that can track a Giving Cart unit anywhere in the
store. Using the Ultra Wide Band technology of their PLUS
product, including ceiling antennas, readers and tags in each of the
Giving Cart devices, we are able to locate each of the units in the
store and trigger the ads accordingly. Time Domain is the leader
in this type of “indoor GPS,” and the accuracy of their
technology is unparalleled.
 A newly designed kiosk has been installed in The
Market, which is
positioned right next to the shopping carts. Greeters are on
hand
to show customers how to use the Giving Cart devices, to respond to any
questions and to collect the units after the customers have passed
through the checkout stands. The Giving Cart units are placed
into the kiosk for recharging and await use by the next customer.
KMI has branded the new device as “The Giving Cart” to
reflect the many services it gives to its users - directories, recipes,
price scanning, targeted advertising, etc. Chief among these is
the new retailer Chime-Time Awards® program where store coupons
ranging from $5 to $25 are awarded each hour to users of the Giving
Cart unit.
Installation at The Market began on September 8, 2009 and will continue
until December, 15, 2009. During this demonstration period we
will be measuring customer response to the units and making adjustments
for the next release of the product. 1 month of product use we
have experienced a 77% usage rate and very positive feedback from the
exit surveys given to customers. To date, we also found that the
most used features are the In Store Director (as expected) and the
Specials, which runs a very close second. In upcoming months we
will be measuring the impact on retail sales from use of the unit and
further refine the design based on continued customer feedback on the
features.
Equipment
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