Modularization of mobile shopping assistance systems

A customer shopping process consists of several essential and optional tasks like payment or information retrieval. This paper presents an overview of the possible solutions in the field of Mobile Interaction that can be applied in order to perform these tasks in future applications based on current and upcoming communication and interaction technologies. The tasks are represented by several modules, like shopping list management, shopping basket management and payment. These modules conceptually describe the available opportunities to realize specific parts of a customer shopping process based on several technologies and customer behavior. In particular, a deep insight into solutions based on Near Field Communication (NFC) is provided. For the first time, the modularization of shopping assistance systems has been considered. It is a substantial advantage for the retailer as it enables the analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of technologies and services. Furthermore, it allows the investigation independent from basic technologies like RFID and barcodes. Regardless of the used technology, the modules can be linked with each other which allows a simple integration of several modules in a retailer's infrastructure. Depending on the usage context, several combinations of modules are more applicable than others. Exemplarily, two implemented prototypes are described illustrating how modules can be combined to handle the specific needs of a market.