At first glance, this new shopping cart idea looks pretty good. You can enter your list at home, head to the store, and bring up your list on the shopping cart itself. Then, as you add items to the cart you scan them and it keeps a running total so you know exactly how much you have spent. Pretty convenient huh?

Microsoft Corp. is bringing digital advertising to the grocery cart.

The software maker spent four years working with Plano, Texas-based MediaCart Holdings Inc. on a grocery cart-mounted console that helps shoppers find products in the store, then scan and pay for their items without waiting in the checkout line. Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, last year for $6 billion shored up the company’s capacity to serve video ads onto these grocery cart screens.

Starting in the second half of 2008, the companies plan to test MediaCart in Wakefern Food Corp.’s ShopRite supermarkets on the East Coast. Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list.

Well, that convenience comes with a price. That’s right, there is always price.

The system also uses radio-frequency identification to sense where the shopper’s cart is in the store. The RFID data can help ShopRite and food makers understand shopping patterns, and the technology can also be used to send certain advertisements to people at certain points — an ad for 50 cents off Oreos, for example, when a shopper enters the cookie aisle. Microsoft said it is still working on how it will present commercials and coupons.

Microsoft is also working with MediaCart and ShopRite to help advertisers reach potential consumers based on past grocery purchases, which are logged when they swipe their loyalty cards.

I wonder how long it will be before some Vegas hotel decides to tap into the shopping carts and allow you to play slot machines while you shop too? You know it’s coming.

In exchange for this great new feature, you will have to use one of their shopper loyalty cards and allow them to track exactly what you do and do not purchase while you are at the store. In addition to tracking your purchases, they will also be able to send data directly to the cart when you enter specific aisles. If I already have my list, I don’t need a commercial telling me about products in the store. Why do they need to know what brands of cereal I buy anyway?

Oh, and I’m not so sure I need to see a commercial for feminine hygeine products when I enter the aisle to pick up deodorant.

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