But what you really wanted was a bottle of your favorite orange juice and it's not in stock. You turn away from the fancy flashing displays and head for the nearest convenience store, grab a bottle of Mr Juicy and slap your Octopus card against the touch-processor. Gau deem.

The three basic needs

With more technologies available in the market designed to enhance customer experience, more retailers are testing and introducing these new and fancy technologies. However none of these advanced technologies and customer-intimate services matter, if they don't address customers' basic needs, according to a January 2006 Gartner report: "Let your customers help design your technology-enabled store of the future".

The report said that customers have only three basic needs: having the product available, having the product easy to find and making checkout fast and easy. If these basic needs are not addressed, even advanced technologies "allow retailers to cut cost or to enhance productivity, they will fall short," said the report.

"This is why we believe that these fundamental promises are what should guide retail store technology investments," the report stated. "Sophisticated new technologies should not be focused on delivering sophisticated store experiences, but on meeting customers' most-basic needs."