Fujitsu also went to work on the hardware side, looking for the perfect combination of simple interface, rugged material, small size and the capability of handling both icy winters and sizzling summers.

A few competitors have likewise been trying to get a foothold in the market. Some require the device to be moved from kiosks to carts and back and also require the use of a store loyalty card.

Slack says that's where the U-Scan Shopper can make inroads.

"The reason others have struggled is that people are not willing to check the device out (from the kiosks)," he said. "Most of us are in a hurry, so we're not going to change our shopping habits. We're going to grab the cart and go."

"Retailers now recognize the value of having a communication tool like this to be able to build relationships with customers," Warner said. "There are the Wal-Marts where they can't compete on price so much anymore, so now they have to find ways to compete on customer service, to deliver a richer experience to their customer. Now they see the value in this, and they're willing to spend money to be able to have that sort of communication tool."

The cost is about $140,000 per store, but ad revenue and additional customer trips and purchases put the estimated return-on-investment period at about 14 months, Slack said.

Customer acceptance

Two non-Utah chains will use the U-Scan Shoppers this winter. Slack predicts the devices will be ubiquitous in five to 10 years, "and it's going to be worldwide," even moving beyond grocery stores to other retail outlets.

Todd A. Hultquist, spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute in Washington, D.C., noted that Stop & Shop, a chain in the Northeast, plans to use a competitor's smart carts, and he predicts others will soon have one electronic device or another to assist shoppers.

"It's a very competitive field, and once the competition does something, other stores will follow suit," said Hultquist, whose organization has members operating about 26,000 retail food stores.

Shoppers, ever more tech-savvy, have quickly adjusted to self-checkout machines. "Some retailers didn't want to invest in them, but customers became interested, so retailers began rolling them out. First there were test stores, then a larger rollout, and I think that's likely to happen here (with smart carts)," Hultquist said.

"Consumers are getting more accustomed to technology in their everyday lives. There are almost as many computers in households as televisions. People are online, connection speeds are getting faster, and the thought of creating a shopping list and uploading to a shopping cart might be very attractive to some shoppers."

Slack acknowledges that gaining customer acceptance might be an issue. "You have to be able to show them a bushel-full of benefits, and its hard to show them up-front those benefits," he said.

But curiosity and convenience likely will overcome ambivalence or hesitancy.

"I can see my 85-year-old father grabbing a cart and saying, 'I don't know what this is, but I've got to get some shopping done,' and it will start to advertise to him," Slack said. "He'll never know to use the scanner, but I can imagine over time him getting used to it and saying, 'I'll use it.' "

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com