w1ld wrote:
] ] "Suppose you endured the checkout line at the grocery
] ] store only to find that you were short on cash, or you'd
] ] forgotten your wallet. What if you could settle the bill
] ] with just the touch of your finger?
] ]
] ] Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR - news), the largest U.S. supermarket
] ] chain, is offering some customers just that opportunity,
] ] testing finger imaging as a method of payment in three of
] ] its Texas stores."
]
] It's bad enough that Kroger knows my address and all the food
] I buy, but now they want our fingerprint. I think not.

Kroger is not the first store to try this. Back in May, I logged a story about Thiftway, a Seattle area grocery store that had adopted a similar pay-by-print system. Most customers seemed to be willing participants.

I've linked here to my earlier blog entry.

My favorite customer comment on the system: "I support new technology."

My second-favorite: "I figure they must have perfected it or they wouldn't be doing it."

What are yours?

RE: Kroger Lets Shoppers Pay Via Fingerprint

Jeremy wrote:

] My favorite customer comment on the system: "I support new
] technology."

Lets take a real-politik perspective on this.

1. It doesn't matter what customers think. This is obviously not the item at the top of the Kroger Shoppers' wish list. I'm a kroger shopper. The thing I most want is for them to shelve the ice cream cones within reasonable proximity to the bloody ice cream. Fingerprinting isn't even on the list.

2. Actually, it does matter, but only if it literally means they loose business, and only if the lost business is more expensive then the savings associated with the system. THAT is exactly what they are trying to figure out with these trials. How much business does this cost them. So, if you see a trial like this, avoiding the stores in question is a good strategy if you don't like this sort of thing.

3. There are three things that matter here: Security, Convenience, and Cost. (There is one thing that does NOT matter here: privacy. These stores are no more interested in protecting your privacy then they are in helping TIA collect fingerprints. They don't care about this either way.)

4. This is being done because its convenient. Convenience = shorter grocery lines = more customers per hour = revenues. The people who have designed it are ONLY thinking about grocery stores. In that context it is far more secure then existing options as anyone trying to fake a print would be easily noticed by the anti-shrinkage brigade. Its also cheaper then loyalty cards because they don't have to print anything. Its win win win for them in their context.

5. The trouble is that they are ONLY thinking about THEIR context. Fingerprints are an absolute nightmare from a security perspective for doing online purchases. Its a password you can't change! Because you are going to want a single payment solution that works in every environment, and because fingerprints don't work in every environment, fingerprints will not be your payment solution, no matter how much it might make sense for Kroger and TIA.

6. However, you might need to use your fingerprint for the customer loyalty program. There is a significant risk that these systems will also serve a law enforement purpose. If you don't like that, opt out. You will be able to opt out, even if it costs you money. If enough people opt out the system will go away. Enough people is not the same as a large amount of people. There only has to be enough dissent such that the cost of that lost business is greater then the savings caused by shaving 30-60 seconds off of each person's checkout time. This may be as little as a hundred customers per store.

7. I have a feeling that the success of this sort of system will vary greatly from community to community. High levels of education, high income levels, or significant political leanings (right OR left) will cause higher rates of opt-out.