I’ll admit to a spot more than window shopping in the last week but the future of shopping being predicted by the Microsoft Tag team is quite appealing. It would certainly avoid the post Christmas shopping scrum. In the infographic posted to their blog this week, they outline one possible scenario that integrates near field communications, Microsoft Tag and location based deals.
I can think of a few other scenarios based on my own experiences in the last few weeks – for example, I saw an item in a store display only to traverse 3 floors of a department store to find out they didn’t have the size I needed. Technology could have saved me the walk with a real-time inventory search based on a scanned tag. During sales week, time is money so if the size I need is available how about letting me scan and reserve before I make it to the department?
Though I titled the post “future of” all the tech is here to make this happen now. Which retailer will be first to take the plunge of this type of scenario? Plenty are already using 2D barcodes – I bought a CamelBak product for a friend and got more info (including videos) pre-purchase by scanning the tag they include.
For those of you heading to CES next week, I’ll have something else to show you in this arena that involves Tag and Kinect.
