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Tesco trials sat nav to guide us round the store
Sarah Coles
May 26th 2011 at 5:00AM
Filed under: Consumer Rights
It's a bugbear for millions of people. Supermarkets get larger every day, and the layouts get ever more illogical and annoying. Clearly it's just not possible to place bread and milk within a half mile radius of one another - so that popping in for the basics becomes a 30 minute trudge around the aisles. Add in the fact that they keep moving products around in order to persuade us to use up even more shoe leather in their store, and it's easy to see why so many of us end up dazed and confused after the weekly shop.
However, this could be a thing of the past, as Tesco is trying out a sat nav.
The sat nav
The software, called Helping Hand, will come as an app - available on android phones. You will be able to input your shopping list, and from the second you step inside the shop it will guide you round the best route, to ensure a minimum number of steps to collect your shopping.
We don't know yet whether it will include a jaunty voice directing us and letting us know when we'll need to perform a trolley u-turn to correct our foolish overshooting. I'm sensing another career opportunity for our Tesco Couple: Mark Addy and Fay Ripley. Of course this could backfire if it catches on, and there's a cacophony of Mark Addys issuing conflicting directions to bemused shoppers. The alternative is hardly ideal either though, as hundreds of distracted shoppers will be crashing shopping trolleys as they peer at screens to know which way to turn next.
At the moment the app is on test at the supermarket's Romford Store - which may not necessarily be a safe place to shop if they haven't ironed out these kinks. If it's successful the app will be rolled out across the country, at which point they'll let us know how much it will cost us - and whether this is a cunning gimmick or yet another money-making opportunity for the supermarket giant.
So what do you think? Would you use an app? Or would you much rather they just put the things you need in sensible places and left them there? Let us know in the comments
Sarah Coles
May 26th 2011 at 5:00AM
Filed under: Consumer Rights
However, this could be a thing of the past, as Tesco is trying out a sat nav.
The sat nav
The software, called Helping Hand, will come as an app - available on android phones. You will be able to input your shopping list, and from the second you step inside the shop it will guide you round the best route, to ensure a minimum number of steps to collect your shopping.
We don't know yet whether it will include a jaunty voice directing us and letting us know when we'll need to perform a trolley u-turn to correct our foolish overshooting. I'm sensing another career opportunity for our Tesco Couple: Mark Addy and Fay Ripley. Of course this could backfire if it catches on, and there's a cacophony of Mark Addys issuing conflicting directions to bemused shoppers. The alternative is hardly ideal either though, as hundreds of distracted shoppers will be crashing shopping trolleys as they peer at screens to know which way to turn next.
At the moment the app is on test at the supermarket's Romford Store - which may not necessarily be a safe place to shop if they haven't ironed out these kinks. If it's successful the app will be rolled out across the country, at which point they'll let us know how much it will cost us - and whether this is a cunning gimmick or yet another money-making opportunity for the supermarket giant.
So what do you think? Would you use an app? Or would you much rather they just put the things you need in sensible places and left them there? Let us know in the comments
