Upon moving to Northern Virginia, I was pleased to discover that our “in the city” grocery store was quite nice.  Well, I first went to a Safeway which was pitiful, and then checked out the Giant. Giant was a hundred times better than the Safeway, and even better than the Giant I used to shop at in Columbia.

Ross was excited to find out that the new Giant has a new shopping tool  — “Scan It”.  Scan It is a handheld scanner (much like the ones you use to register) that allows you to scan your groceries as you go.  (Fun gadget = more fun shopping experience for the guys).  In order to be able to ’scan’ your produce, there are scales where you can weight and print out a label for your produce.  Wegmans had a similar feature — but was easier to use because there were more scales, and the produce codes were obviously displayed.  At Giant you have to use the little look up feature to figure out what the produce code is.

Look…the carts are even made with special holders for the scanner

The idea is to scan your groceries as you go, and then bag them in the cart.  That way when you go to the check-out all you have to do is slip the little scanner in the holder and pay.  As you go through the store, the scanner dings when you are passing a special — and it lets you know what the special is.  I would say that’s pretty sophisticated technology to know where you are in the store.

Ross thinks it’s a pretty cool gadget and wanted to use it again when we went grocery shopping yesterday.  I, however, don’t think I’ll be using it when I go to the grocery store on my own.  I think it’s kind of a pain to scan stuff as you go — and then have to walk around to the front of the cart to bag it. I don’t think it’s much of a time saver if you’re on your own.  However, a pretty cool gadget…wonder if other stores are doing something similar yet.