Grocery shopping aid finds instant fandom

Source: Technology Digital

Date :31/05/2007 12:51:23

Voice-activated Smartshopper lets homeowners recite, organize and print shopping list needs.

By David Weldon

For many shoppers, a trip to the grocery store means carrying a disorganized or incomplete shopping list, and a fist full of coupons that often require backtracking through food aisles for items they’ve forgotten.

But two entrepreneurs in the Cleveland area hope to end that frustration with a new pocket-size shopping aid that is already catching the consumer spotlight in a big way.

Smartshopper is a cell-phone size voice-activated grocery assistant that enables consumers to merely say, and electronically store, their grocery needs into the device as they think of them. Smartshopper matches any word spoken into it to its database of common grocery items, tracks them alphabetically, and organizes them by category so that a complete shopping list can be printed out when needed.

The new product, which was showcased at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in January, uses thermal printing technology from Axiohm USA, in Loveland, Ohio, eliminating the need to use cartridges. Retailing for $149.95, the Smartshopper has a digital screen that allows viewing of several lines of items. It comes with 2,500 preprogrammed grocery store items (the generic type of product, not specific brands), but those items can be modified, and more items can be added at will.

While electronics and retail news outlets normally focus on leading players in their market, one of the most unique aspects of the device is how quickly it has generated a lot of excitement. Smartshopper was an instant hit among attendees at the CES show. It was profiled by numerous television, radio and newspaper outlets, and word of the product has already gone global.

Only one month after debuting, JC Penney and Neiman Marcus stores have already signed up to carry Smartshopper, and Amazon.com is reportedly looking into adding the device to its available online merchandise.

“The interest level has been very high,” according to Angela Brindisi, who handles public relations and marketing for Smartshopper, as well as being the wife of one of the product’s two developers. “At CES, Smartshopper won the Design and Engineering Award, received an Honoree Award for Innovative Produce, and was named one of the Top Ten Products at the Show.”

One of the other unique aspects of Smartshopper is that it was developed by two gentlemen who are collaborating on their first such enterprise, and who are generating a lot of product buzz right out of the starting gate.

Smartshopper was initially the brainchild of Greg Vittardi , vice president of an electrical contracting company, who conceived of it while on the drive home from work. He told his retired friend Richard Brindisi about the idea at a backyard BBQ. The two immediately decided that American kitchens were crying out for a device that would make the tracking of grocery shopping needs simple but effective and they spend the next two years developing Shartshopper.

Richard Brindisi recalls thinking that everyone in America would want one of the devices in their kitchen. The two may have hit on something. As Angela Brindisi tells it, “We especially had a lot of interest from homebuilders, who were excited about offering Smartshopper as a standard feature for customers in kitchen remodeling,” Brindisi said.