Apple’s patent reveals the future of in-store shopping with NFC product scanners

When shopping online, we can take advantage of the wealth of information about the products we want to buy. Each well-designed product page provides all the necessary details, such as variants, shipping information and specifications.

However, things are different when shopping in a store. There you often have to either find out information beforehand or go to the trouble of asking an employee for information and telling them that you are not quite sure what you want to buy.

But now Apple wants to change our offline shopping experience. The latest patent (US12073413) entitled “Product Experience Service”, points to a new service that provides users with all the important data about a product they want to buy in the store.

According to the patent, in the future you will be able to scan a product you are interested in and instantly receive all the necessary information, such as variants, compatibility with your existing devices and more. When you scan a product, a special card similar to the verification prompts in the App Store or Apple Wallet will appear on your Apple device and contain all the relevant details.

This card also allows you to purchase the product instantly with Apple Pay. This feature simplifies the purchase process and makes it quick and convenient.

Since the patent mentions NFC scanning, this service is likely to be most effective on electronic devices.

But that’s not all – in addition to improving the pre-purchase experience, Apple’s new service also offers post-purchase support, such as easy-to-understand product manuals, relevant apps, and more.

It’s worth noting that we probably won’t see this service anytime soon. Not only will Apple need to populate its database with all the necessary information, but retailers and manufacturers will likely also need to make their products compatible with this new service.

While there is still a long way to go, once this new “product experience service” is implemented, it could change the way we shop in-store.