New Grocery Store Products
Concierge Electronic Shopping Cart:
Now that the mega-groceries have us bagging our own purchases, will the check out clerk at the cash register be going the same way as the bank teller or the gas station attendant? It would seem likely now that the lowly grocery cart has been transformed into a hi-tech carrier. Springboard Retail Networks has developed a cart with an interactive touch-screen display that provides a barcode scanner and a wireless transmitter affixed to the shopping cart handle. Customers can create their shopping list online from home, and it will be transferred to the cart via the Internet via an inserted keycard. Additional features found on the display are an interactive store directory map system, “timely information� (in other words, advertising and all the frightening possibilities that that implies) on the new product screen and even a running total calculator to help keep you on your budget. Who knows what street people, the true connoisseurs and biggest consumer market for various makes and models of grocery carts will make of this. Perhaps it is now going to cost the rest of us a lot more than a loonie to take one for a whirl through the supermarket. But then aging boomers take heart, if it reminds you to buy the one thing you actually went into the store to buy in the first place, that’s not a bad thing either.
The Aromapod
Not another air freshener but a portable aromatherapy system that the manufacturer is branding as a “lifestyle management tool�. It fits in your pocket, handbag or glove box and is said to be a fusion of science and nature. With increased stress, time pressures and changing lifestyles AromaPod is just “a twist away from an exhilarating mist that promotes calm, energy, focus and awake sensations�. My, just think if happiness anarchists get a hold of this and spray it on the Skytrain one morning. All those people looking alive could really wreck havoc on the social structure.
Who’s Your Momma?
A Natrel Warmer is one litre milk packet that pours right into your favourite cup. You place the cup in the microwave and within minutes you have milk that “warms your heart and your soul� with flavours such as “Chocolate Truffle�, “Green Tea� and “Caramel Embrace� – all without curdling! Here we imagine the manufacturer is making some sort of cute play on the words “natural� and “natal�…the next best thing to thumb sucking.
Style Sneezin’
Why have just any old rectangle-shaped tissue box when Kleenex is selling oval cartons with 3D graphics in seven designer styles including “eye-catching holiday visuals�. You’ll want to display one of these on your 20th century modern coffee table next to the avant-garde photography tome. Or not.