Idea: I-Deal - Mobile Search for Best Product Prices

With the mall culture setting in so fast and retailing being the new buzz-iness, it becomes almost inevtiable for people to compare, rate and select the best for there use. What if You get to decide which superstore they go to?

I-Deal is a business idea for startups to help customers determine the ideal deal they're looking for. Imagine using your camera phone to click the barcode of a product and receiving the best deals available in your area for the product. The camera would capture the barcode, convert it into numbers, add your demographic details and send an SMS to a server. This server would compare the price quotes of the product from all superstores in the location and send an SMS back with results classified as Nearest, Best Price and Best Deal. The user can choose if they want the cheapest price, or willing to travel the smallest distance or looking for that free with the product offer.

All this is possible by setting up an SMS Server, a mobile app and product list, store location and quotes from retail stores chains.

Idea: Automated Billing Trolleys (The Super Market Diaries)

To mark my first post, i would definitely introduce my obsession about changing the way supermarkets work. Those of you who know me well, would definitely have heard this before from me.

It's really annoying how picking up a couple of items at Big Bazaar and the likes in India, we have to be standing in a queue that never seems to end. The idea is called 'BillFast' and is aimed at reducing these long queues at supermarkets and large format retail stores. It would require mounting a Bar Code reader on the handle side of the supermarket trolley facing the basket space. This would be connected to a 5 line monochrome LCD display. Also, a retractable USB cable to connect to the billing desk.
How it works: Any person who wants to pick up less than 10 small items can pick this trolley, use the barcode scanner to scan the items and ]verify his items and total price on the display. For billing, there is a separate express billing counter where the USB would pulled from the trolley and connected to the billing counter to transfer the list for billing. The count of items and names would be displayed on the billing monitor and the items can be verified while packing.

Notes:

• This would be the first generation concept and eventually the entire billing could be brought on similar lines
•  The number of items have been restricted to a convenient number to avoid errors in verification of the items scanned and the items actually present in the trolley.