I had to go shopping at IKEA with my son the other night as he needs furniture for his new apartment. It is a huge place, and when we asked for help we were given a piece of paper and asked to write down the items that we were interested in buying. A very frustrating process. He said to me at the time - why can't they just put barcodes on the pricetags that we could scan somehow. How great it would have been to simply scan theses items into my phone. I had already shown him the video of the german supermarket who had this technology in their stores.

Well it seems that there are some stores in the US planning to adopt this technology.

Polo is the first luxury retailer to launch a mobile commerce site, hoping to stay ahead of a trend that is making its way from Asia to the United States, said David Lauren, senior vice president of advertising and son of designer and Chief Executive Ralph Lauren.

You can see the full story at Yahoo!

 This has been going on in Japan for years, now it's good to see others using it.

I was reading about IKEA getting into the mobile phone business.....story here

yrless:

IKEA getting into the mobile phone business

I don't think this sounds like a good idea - it's too big a place with too many uncaring sales people - I cannot cope with this - I ended up going to a local store and buying a sofa and coffee table from there - I may have spent a bit more, but it saved me so much time and stress and I knew that I could trust the sales people. The same is true if I was buying a mobile device - I would not go to Ikea to save myself a few dollars - I would go to somewhere that I could trust to give me good advice and offer me the best deal and service.

Laura Rooke:

it's too big a place with too many uncaring sales people

I agree...I just cringe even when I walk into Best Buy or places like that and see people trying to get information and the sales staff has no clue...

Laura Rooke:

I would go to somewhere that I could trust to give me good advice and offer me the best deal and service.

I now only go into a store to see the devices. For information, this site and others like it are the only places of value to go.