Beacons installed inside retail stores like Saks or grocery outlets can send proximity-based alerts to shoppers at the precise moment — and location — that they’re enabled to make a decision on a purchase. This is the holy grail of retail advertising, which normally takes a scattershot approach to ‘pre-advertising’ shoppers or tries to guesstimate when they’re in the vicinity of a product.

I’m not convinced this is something I want when I go shopping. Admittedly, when I do shop, I tend to know exactly what I want and where it is, so maybe I’m not the target market.