NU 12#5 e-3P Shopping System by Vinca Rosea

NU 12#5 

e-3P Shopping System

by Vinca Rosea

I love music. Even if buying music CDs would eventually become obsolete because of on-line purchase of music, if I chance upon a music store and get across into a unique find, I will buy that music CD. True enough, last Christmas season, my family and I went to Ever Gotesco Ortigas and as we are about to leave the mall, I couldn't help to stop by a music store booth just outside the lobby of the mall and scan the music CDs being sold. Since we are still waiting for my husband to finish an errand, I asked my kids to accompany me while I scan the products. I found an interesting Christmas Album of James Taylor. Excitingly, I hand it over to the sales lady to buy it. It cost Php 375.00 and I handed Php 500. The lady asked if I could pay the exact amount because she didn't have enough change. I said I don't have enough lower bills to pay the CD. She then said that she will have to go inside the mall to get a change for me, leaving me with the CD and at the booth. She promised to be back by 5 minutes.  5 minutes passed, still we had no whereabouts her. Worried, I patiently waited. Another sales lady came after 3 minutes, I asked her about her co-employee, she simply replied she wasn't sure but said that her companion will come back. Restless, I started to feel uncomfortable. To cut the long story short, it took 10 minutes before the sales lady came back, as she came back with a tape receipt, I wanted a refund and started giving them a lecture on how to improved their service. When I asked for refund, I received the worst answer from them,"Ay, okay po, kaya lang po kailangan po kayo sumama sa akin sa loob para sabihin sa manager that you will refund...". At that point, I just felt so deprived of great customer experience.

The current system in shopping is you have to walk through the aisle of products to pick the products and then line up for payment and have your goods packed. To simplify --- pick - pay- pack or should I say the 3P system. Majority of the process involves people which have a number of variations in delivering the process. Now I  began to wonder, in big warehouses, they have technology-aided solutions to do this. They use remote controls to key in a specific product and quantity to be picked and the expense of that item is automatically billed and the picked item is also packed already. If this is possible, all we need is remote control and machine that will pick and a software that would bill. 

I hope there would come a time, probably we could start off with grocery. A regular buyer in a mall gets a remote control and punches all items that they need and the machine starts to pick for them, bills their card and packs the product. The shopper can do other errands while waiting for the packed items ready for pick up. I will call it e-3P which means "electronic pick-pay-pack shopping system". Security measures should also be considered like appointing PIN codes for each shopper, features to confirm orders prior to picking and charging. 

Going back to my experience I shared earlier, if this solution will be made to consider other products sold in mall, customers wont end up worried about where they money went and store owners will not wonder why their booths ended up unattended. 4