TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Touch Tone Grocery Shopping

TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Touch Tone Grocery Shopping - Promise Never Realized?

Touch Tone Grocery Shopping - Promise Never Realized?

In looking through 1960-era articles and advertisements about future
telephone service (including Touch Tone service), a continuing theme
was telephone grocery shopping. The newspaper's ad every day would
contain code numbers next to each advertised product. A housewife
would use this to call in an order.

I realize some supermarkets have Internet orders, but I don't think
telephone pick up ever became widespread as originally forseen. (I
wonder if it ever was used for grocery shopping).

I suspect some retailing issues had an impact:

1) At one time grocery stores delivered, no more.

2) Grocery stores evolved into self-service supermarkets with lower
prices and less support. A busy supermarket did not have the resources
to have people pull orders.

3) Desire to select their own products, such as meat, fruits, and
vegatables.

Some things we do use today like telephone banking of course came to
pass. Unfortunately, today you are forced to use the automatic system
and can't talk to a person when you need one without a long wait and
aggravation.

Early Bell Touch Tone installations included Carnegie and Greensburg
in Western Pa (NYT 11/14/63), Chardon Ohio (Stromberg Carlson NYT
12/19/62), Findlay Ohio November, 1960. Canton Ohio would be ready in
1963.

All Bell machine exchanges required a front end tone converter.
Different types were built for different switch types (panel, No 1
Crossbar, No 5 crossbar). For Step by Step, a variety of converters
were required depending on traffic volume and remaining life of an
exchange.

While Touch Tone availability slowly grew throughout the U.S., I think
between 1975-1980 the remaining parts of the country rapidly got it; I
believe it was virtually available everywhere by 1980. However,
consumers were slower to convert and a great many remained rotary into
the 1990s.

[public replies please]

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Internet grocery shopping and delivery
was a very good feature and when I lived around Chicago area (both in
Skokie and on the north side of Chicago, it was offered by a company
called 'Pea Pod', and although we had to pay a relatively small fee
for the service, Pea Pod generally made its money from Jewel Food
Stores, with whom they had a relationship. The service was rather good
and very prompt. Here in Independence, we do not have 'internet grocery
shopping' at the present time, but one of the grocery stores (Safeway)
had planned on starting it a few years ago, but then Walmart showed up
and chased not only Safeway, but the three other major grocery stores
out of town. And Walmart, of course, has no provision for doing
anything different than cash and carry, in huge quantities. A chain of
stores called 'Marvins IGA' moved in where the old Country Mart had
been located, but they are just barely hanging on, financially, and do
not feel they could afford the cost of working along with the internet
people. PAT]

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