The UK retailer, known in the US for operating the Fresh & Easy grocery chain on the West Coast, is currently testing the Android app in one of its Greater London area stores. If you’re in the area and want to try it out, download the app and head to the Romford store to give it a go. Once in-store, shoppers enter their shopping list into their phone; they’ll then get a 3D map that points out where they are, and where to find the items they’re looking for. Let shopping commence!
Nick Lansley of Tesco’s Research & Development team blogged about the neat in-store sat-nav, writing that the service is being developed to guide “you [around] the store to pick up your products using the shortest route”.
However, the time-saving app is not available elsewhere just yet–it all depends on how this “beta” shopping experiment pans out. Tesco’s Lansley explained that the company “won’t be rolling this out to customers in general for a while”, detailing that Tesco needs to think about the general usefulness and infrastructure implications that the app would present, adding,”It would be awful if we did all this work but few customers really used it.”
Whether Tesco’s experiment is a success or not (and here’s hoping it is), the idea is a neat one. Imagine being able to get in and out of Wal Mart in record time, or finding where the digital cameras are in your local Best Buy in a flash.
I for one welcome our sat nav shopping future. For those in the U.K (and close to Romford), here’s how you can join in the R&D fun.
[Via The Telegraph | Photo: Mark Hillary on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)]
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