Smart Shopping Carts Coming to Illinois Grocery Stores First

I understand the appeal, but I also have so many questions. An Illinois-based grocery store chain claims that their customers most want smarter shopping carts. The question is whether or not shoppers have really thought this through.

I saw this interesting read from Supermarket News about customer trends based on surveys that have apparently been done by Illinois-based Kroger stores. The article includes some interesting things that their customers have said they want, but one in particular caught my eye.

The surveys say that 38% of Illinois grocery shoppers want smart shopping carts that "tally their total as they make their way through the store and enable shoppers to bypass the checkout lane".

The concept of these shopping carts is they not only tally your total, but there's a point of sale payment method built right into the cart eliminating the need to go through a checkout lane.

Kroger in Illinois has apparently been testing these carts for months and they're called "Kro-Go" and there are already plenty of them read for service.

The question involves how willing Illinois grocery customers are to potential privacy concerns. Do you really want a computerized cart documenting every place you stop in a store and what you're interested in and what you put back on the shelf? What about security? Would your information really be secure on a cart that thousands of other people will also use if they fell into the wrong hands?

Perhaps the convenience is worth the risk and I have no doubt that smarter people than me have addressed these concerns. It looks like one way or another the latest grocery store technology will emerge from Illinois.