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SALT LAKE CITY — Some stores, like Amazon, track your purchases and suggest products you may like when you log in to the website. Now that technology is coming to brick and mortar stores.
Welcome to shopping 2.0, where with a new technology stores know your gender and your mood, and they can even anticipate your wants.
Cako, a cupcake store in San Francisco is trying out tech built by a company called Index. It helps retailers target products to you based on your taste.
"If you like red velvet cupcakes you probably love the combination of cream cheese as well as cocoa cake, so we would recommend the pumpkin cheesecake cupcake," said Albert Chen, Cako owner. The goal of Index is to bring the online experience offline.
"We kinda looked at Amazon as a backdrop for a lot of the things that we do. Amazon's built an incredible experience online and a lot of this has to do with their ability to recognize who you are," said Jonathan Wall, co-founder of Index. "Offline retailers need to be able to recognize you, really on any channel you engage with them, whether it be online, social or in-store."
The new technology, which you opt into at the store, is baked into their payment system to collect your buying behavior. It's also integrated into a store's app, so you'll get push notifications when you enter the store.
"So it will say, ‘Welcome back, Mark.' It might suggest a new product, maybe provide you with an incentive to try something new," said Marc Freed-Finnegan, co-founder of Index.
The Index founders were previously behind google wallet, but their new tech doesn't require a phone to pay.
"You actually don't have to pull out your phone or your wallet. You walk up, you enter an Index pin, and you effectively log in to the store."
"Right now the technology is limited to smaller retailers like Cako, but the Index founders are hoping that eventually the technology will be in major retailers. And imagine this — by walking into a store, you're actually logging into that store," said Laurie Segall, CNN tech and social media reporter.
Ads are getting smart too.
Immersive Labs is implementing digital ads on phones or tablets that use the webcam to analyze your reaction and whether you're excited by the product or not.
Other entrepreneurs have set out to transform the way we pay, and ‘tis the season where surprisingly less might be more.
Coin is a new connected device that digitally combines all your credit cards into one electronic card.
It works like an app — users swipe their cards into their phones, take a picture, then the information is stored in a Coin card. The user then chooses which card they wish to use in the store, and the Coin card is swiped just like a credit card.
