Mobile Shopping Route Optimization via Aisle Waypoints
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Consumers face difficulties in efficiently navigating supermarkets due to the large number of aisles and sections, leading to repeated traversing of the store while searching for products on their shopping lists, even when using digital lists.
Innovation Solution
A mobile computing device system that determines product waypoints and optimizes shopping routes by communicating with a shopping list server to provide GPS coordinates or aisle locations for items, allowing users to efficiently locate products and minimize store traversal.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If consumers use a digital shopping list to organize items, then they can better remember and organize their shopping items, but they still repeatedly traverse aisles and visit the same regions multiple times
Solution Approach 1:
The shopping list is segmented into groups corresponding to different store sections or aisles. Items are organized not just by category but by their physical location in the store, creating location-based segments that guide the consumer through the store in an efficient sequence, reducing repeated traversals.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary routing calculations before the consumer enters the store. By pre-determining the optimal path through aisles and sections based on the shopping list items, the system prepares a navigation plan that prevents wasted movement and repeated visits to the same areas.
2Ease of operation
If consumers manually navigate through dozens of aisles to find products, then they can locate items on their shopping list, but the shopping experience becomes harrowing and inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile device acts as an intermediary between the consumer and the store environment. It provides real-time navigation guidance, aisle location information, and product location data, mediating the complex task of navigating through dozens of aisles and transforming it into a simple follow-the-directions experience.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces manual navigation mechanics with automated digital guidance. Instead of relying on the consumer to physically search through aisles and remember locations, electronic instructions and turn-by-turn directions automate the navigation process, significantly improving shopping efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for optimizing a shopping agenda are disclosed. The techniques include receiving an electronic shopping list containing one or more items, each item indicating a product sold by a retailer. The techniques also include determining, at the processing device, a store location of the retailer, the store location indicating a store where the one or more products indicated by the one or more items are to be purchased. The techniques further include determining one or more product waypoints based on the one or more items in the electronic shopping list and the store map, each product waypoint of the one or more product waypoints respectively corresponding to one of the one or more items and being indicative of a product location of the product indicated by the item in the store. The techniques further include providing the one or more product waypoints for display.