Keeping on top of your shopping

With supermarkets in hot competition over the most effective delivery of groceries through the Internet, the Tesco chain has begun selling a personal organiser with a built-in bar-code reader for online orders.

The specially-adapted Palm Pilot is being sold over the Web and only Tesco's Sunbury store, south-west of London, is fulfilling orders from it at launch.

If its adoption is successful, the initiative will be extended nationwide.

Tesco undercuts Safeway by ten days

The supermarket chain is stealing a march over its rival Safeway. It plans to launch an identical Palm Pilot on February 1, initially for use in its Basingstoke store.

The bar-code Palm Pilot

The differences are in the software and the means of delivery. Tesco's device is powered by the British company Unipower's Shopping Magic software while Safeway's relies on programs developed by IBM in the US.

Shopping ordered over the Net from Tesco will be delivered for a £5 flat fee, Safeway will operate the new system under its Collect & Go scheme where shoppers pick up their groceries.

Scan anywhere anytime

The new Tesco device can scan any of its products in the supermarket or anything in a kitchen cupboard to build up a shopping list. The Palm Pilot can be synchronised with a laptop or PC running Tesco software and link up with a database of thousands of items.

A Tesco picker is quicker

Orders sent over the Net are sorted by aisles when they arrive instore and workers known as pickers, using trolleys with touch-pad screens and scanners, quickly collect the shopping for delivery in vans.

Unipower has developed software for other online delivery companies, such as London's Food Ferry, which gives details of ingredients and even sorts items for viewing according to their lowest fat, calorie or carbohydrate content.

The Tesco version could include these features in future and already provides the company with important information on individuals' preferences, allowing it to target promotions effectively.

Customers can be bar coded too

Safeway says its software links to its loyalty card database and sends customers personalised suggestions and promotions based on their previous orders, as well as information on new products, special offers and recipes.

The company pioneered self-scanning with an instore launch in March 1995. Now available in 160 UK stores, the Shop & Go scheme allows shoppers to scan their shopping and have it collected together for them and put in their cars.

The Waitrose chain has adopted a slightly different online approach: it has been running Waitrose@work making large scale deliveries to workers at companies such as ICL and British Airways who have ordered goods over their intranets.

Sainsbury's has one foot in the past

Sainsbury's has a more basic scanning and home delivery system. Its latest Web innovation is an educational site launched this month which it believes to be the world's first Virtual Retail Museum.

It features documents, photographs and artefacts about Sainsbury's stores, going back to the opening of the first shop in London's Drury Lane in 1869.

Schoolchildren can follow a timeline of the firm's development, explore an old shop and investigate the working conditions in Victorian times for men, women and young workers.

Microwave your online orders

Looking to the future, the NCR Knowledge Lab in central London has developed a prototype microwave oven with voice activation and a built-in touch-screen and bar code reader that would allow consumers to order food over the Net or pay their bills.

Swipe-able Microwave

"At NCR we believe in adapting technology to the consumer rather than the other way round," says Stephen Emmott, the Knowledge Lab director. "The Microwave Bank combines a host of Internet services in one unit - so you can do all your shopping and banking from your kitchen, as well as e-mailing your kids or watching TV."