19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

1) I am a senior at the University of Florida, graduating this spring. I am a Biology major on the pre-med track and I hope to eventually become a physician, for which I will be applying to medical school this summer. Next year, I will be spending my gap year at home in South Florida working and doing research. I hope that my business idea to speed up the checkout process at grocery store might make the process a little more convenient for me and allow me to focus my time in other important tasks, such as studying.

2) I plan to have cashiers posted with smartphones that are equipped with scanning and paying abilities. This will minimize the time spent in checkout lines. This will be especially useful during a time like this when customers are lining up outside of stores to stock up on groceries for the crisis we are in. And it might even be helpful to promote some aspects of the concept of social distancing.

3) My customers will be college students and working adults especially parents (male or female), because these are the customers that I encountered that go grocery shopping and often complain about the long checkout lines.

4) Customers find this product of mine valuable, because it will save them a lot of time in the grocery store and allow them to spend time doing other tasks in their busy schedule.

5) This solution can help to tackle two issues at once, which not many can do. It not only minimizes the time spent at the grocery store, but also minimizes some of our plastic waste by encouraging customer to not bag certain items.
Now that I look at it, and given the current state of the ongoing pandemic, my solution can also help tackle another issue, which is fighting against COVID-19 by promoting social distancing during checkout.

I think all 5 elements that I proposed in this post really do fit together. At first, I thought the first element regarding who I am was the most out-of-joint with the others, but then I realized that this element serves to explain why the solution I am proposing would cater to me and people like me.

The one feedback I received for my first napkin idea post wrote that I had a great solution and agreed that speeding up the checkout process would indeed help us accomplish more of our other daily tasks. I used this feedback to reflect on the current situation of COVID-19. I feel like now more than ever people are really in need of more efficiency during the checkout process and a method that would promote healthy interactions and proper social distancing.