How Light Bulbs Watch You Buy Groceries

[Free Vulcan]

In an enormous grocery store in northern France, the lights above the aisles aren’t all they seem to be. They look ordinary—more than a mile and a half of fixtures exuding bright light, folded into a grid overhead—but they’re actually flickering faster than the human eye can see. The unique patterns each individual section of lighting emits are a 21st-century twist on Morse code, meant not for people, but for the cameras on their phones.

If shoppers grant the store’s app access to their smartphone’s front-facing lens, the phone can watch for the lights and use the pulses to pinpoint its location. Doing so allows the app to plot the best routes for shopping lists, tracking people as they travel through the store. (The guidance might come in especially handy for first-time visitors to the 84,000-square foot Carrefour “hypermarket,” the French equivalent of a Walmart.)

Location information is one of the most valuable types of data a retailer can gather from its customers, says Joseph Turow, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania. (I interviewed Turow about the future of retail surveillance last month.) If a retailer knows where you spent most of your time inside of a store, it can follow up with discounts for a product you looked at but didn’t buy—either after you’ve left the store, to encourage a return trip, or even right as you’re lingering in the aisle, to nudge you to buy it now. In the U.S., Target and Walmart are rumored to use lighting technology to locate smartphone-toting shoppers, but aren’t forthcoming about their plans...

Read more at: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/how-light-bulbs-watch-you-buy-groceries/508061/

[Cripplecreek]

I don't love the idea of being tracked but a lot of the technology comes in really handy.

Last week I put in my order in a restaurant before I got there. When we went inside our phones alerted the restaurant, someone appeared from the back to seat us and our meal was at our table inside of 3 minutes.

When I shop for groceries I like typing "Milk, Bread, etc" into the phone and having it tell me about sales in the store.

I'm learning to love my smart meter too.

[Oceander]

I can also see another benefit.  A retailer can use the information to figure out what sets of groceries people are more likely to buy on the same trip and use that data to rearrange the shelving so that buyers trips are more efficient - and also to figure out what spur of the moment items those people are more likely to buy so that temptation can be appropriately sprinkled along the route those shoppers take. 

[Oceander]

yes, this is a very clever use of tech. And the tracking bit seems harmless - it's only relevant if you are running their app, and only very course grained - what aisle you are on, not what you are pulling from the shelf.

What you're pulling off the shelf can probably be deduced based on your location.  Nonetheless, unless my spouse can get the info to find out how much candy and other bad stuff I buy but don't share, I'm not sure I really care.

[driftdiver]

yes, this is a very clever use of tech. And the tracking bit seems harmless - it's only relevant if you are running their app, and only very course grained - what aisle you are on, not what you are pulling from the shelf.

@Scutter
@Cripplecreek

UMMMMM yes they are, they don't actually track what you pull off the shelf until you check out but they do track where you are in the aisle.  Since they know whats at that location they can guess what you are looking at with a fair degree of accuracy.   They also dont need you to download their app, although that does help.  They can track your phone signal and if you connect to their wifi they use that.

Its mind boggling what they can tell about a person based on their behavior and a few data points.

[Cripplecreek]

yes, this is a very clever use of tech. And the tracking bit seems harmless - it's only relevant if you are running their app, and only very course grained - what aisle you are on, not what you are pulling from the shelf.

The smart meter is helping me keep tabs on my own electric use per day which helps me keep it manageable. My bill is running at less than half of what it was before the smart meter. The fact that there is an actual reading every day means no more bills "estimated" 200% higher than the month before.

[Wingnut]

Last week I put in my order in a restaurant before I got there. When we went inside our phones alerted the restaurant, someone appeared from the back to seat us and our meal was at our table inside of 3 minutes.

I don't like that one bit.  No sir. 
The restaurant does tho.  The table turn rate increases and means more profits.

[Wingnut]

Me either.  Rush your butts out so they can have a higher turnover rate.  I prefer to chat and visit while waiting for my food to arrive.

Don't forget...Have a cocktail or three too.

(25 or six to 4)

[Cripplecreek]

I don't like that one bit.  No sir. 
The restaurant does tho.  The table turn rate increases and means more profits.

You don't have to order that way.

[Wingnut]

You don't have to order that way.

If ever given the chance, I shan't.

[Oceander]

They already rearrange.  That's why bread is on one end of the store and dairy is on the opposite.  They want you to travel through their whole store hoping you will see something that will remind you to pick it up.  Efficiency for the shopper is not part of their game.

I know they do, but they don't have the sort of data that would make rearrangement really work well.  And the use of big-data techniques would allow them to make the shopper's trip more efficient - or at least less frustrating - while still allowing them to place impulse buy items along the path.  It would also allow them to match the impulse items more closely to the other things the shopper is buying, increasing the odds of sales.

And the benefit from increasing the amount of time a person spends in the store has a definite limit to it; if a person cannot find what they're looking for in a reasonable amount of time, they get frustrated and leave to look for what they want in another store, and that leaves a bad taste in their mouth for the entire store.  After all, if I'm on the hunt for ingredients for lasagna, making me walk down aisles full of cleaning supplies is not going to make me more likely to buy cleaning supplies, it's going to make me more likely to leave in frustration and go buy my lasagna ingredients elsewhere; and even worse, if I like the other store better, then I'll go there for my cleaning supplies too.

[Smokin Joe]

I can also see another benefit.  A retailer can use the information to figure out what sets of groceries people are more likely to buy on the same trip and use that data to rearrange the shelving so that buyers trips are more efficient - and also to figure out what spur of the moment items those people are more likely to buy so that temptation can be appropriately sprinkled along the route those shoppers take.

They could, or they could do like WalMart and make sure you have to hit every corner of the store. Bread (rt. front), milk (rt. back), Soap, shampoo, dog food (Left front), any hardware or car stuff (left rear). At least I get my exercise in there. Route is chosen by weight of products to be purchased: light stuff first, heaviest stuff last, counterclockwise circumnavigation of the interior and out through the checkout, but the whole way exposed to the endcaps and specials and impulse items. Not hard to resist, really, but there.

[Victoria33]

I have my computer camera turned off so Amazon can't take a picture of me in their store on the net.      I zoom through the pages, pick what I want, pay for it real fast and run out of the website.  So far, I have escaped notice.  While there, if I put the right words in their "search", I see the products all lined up in an aisle, can even select "low to high price" or "high to low price".  I can choose "Prime" and limit the number of items in the aisle.  Amazon is my store. 

[Cripplecreek]

That's pretty nice. Might have to look into that here. Electricity cost out here is one of the few things that is cheap compared to the rest of the country, though. Although the stupid liberals are trying to screw that up too - they don't consider hydroelectric power to be "green" power. Seems like they won't be happy until we're all living in caves...

We should be using more hydro but liberals are fixated on tearing out every dam in sight.

Just a few years ago the DOE identified some 800 small to medium dams east of the Mississippi that they say could be brought into production with modern technology like retrofits. I'm a big fan of dams anyway because they create value by their mere existence. They create high dollar lakefront property, revenue from watersports and fishing etc., habitat for waterfowl etc.

I live on a small reservoir that once operated a grain mill but has the potential of producing electricity if there were money for a generator retrofit.

[roamer_1]

What you're pulling off the shelf can probably be deduced based on your location.  Nonetheless, unless my spouse can get the info to find out how much candy and other bad stuff I buy but don't share, I'm not sure I really care.

They know what you pulled off the shelf when you pay for the precisely itemized list with your credit card.

[Wingnut]

Agreed but I didn't want others here to know that I am a lush.

I won't tell if you don't!   

[catfish1957]

That's pretty nice. Might have to look into that here. Electricity cost out here is one of the few things that is cheap compared to the rest of the country, though. Although the stupid liberals are trying to screw that up too - they don't consider hydroelectric power to be "green" power. Seems like they won't be happy until we're all living in caves...

10-15 kwh used per day?   Are you a
spartan?