SALISBURY, N.C. — Bloom, a division of Food Lion here, is “encouraged” by the early results of a test of a mobile shopping device, known as PAT (personal assistant technology), in one store in Fort Mill, S.C.
The device, an 8.4-inch touchscreen tablet that is attached to the front of each of the store’s shopping carts, allows shoppers to locate products, view a digital sales flyer and look up recipes, and it enables loyalty shoppers to access online shopping lists and favorite recipes. The device also includes a global positioning system (GPS) that alerts shoppers to price specials in their vicinity as they shop the store.
"We are encouraged by the early results of the pilot and have found that consumers appreciate PAT and feel that it makes shopping more convenient through the many features currently available on PAT, such as store navigation or customer shopping lists,” said Christy Phillips-Brown, a Food Lion spokeswoman. “Given the current economic conditions, consumers are also interested in ways that PAT can help them save money.”
Consumers’ favorite features, she added, are the product locator and recipe features.
Bloom will continue to test the system through early next year and “will evaluate the results before deploying the system to other locations,” said Phillips-Brown, who declined to provide cost details.
The Fort Mill store is the first supermarket to test PAT, which is supplied and managed by Springboard Retail Networks, Toronto, which refers to it as “Concierge.” SN reported on the PAT system in the Sept. 21, 2009, issue, but Bloom was not available to comment for that story.
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