• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, March 22, 2017

Consumers are comfortable with the idea of using virtual reality to improve their in-store experience and even like the idea of having their grocer suggest a shopping list for their customers.

However, there are limits to what consumers feel comfortable accepting.

These are among some of the top line results from a survey of 700 consumers by Oracle Retail presented at the Oracle Industry Connect conference in Orlando this week.

The majority (67%) of consumers surveyed said they like the option of near real-time delivery to their doorsteps by drones, even though that option is hardly yet widely available.

More than half (64%) of consumers liked the option of using virtual reality to navigate a personalized in-store experience and having a hand-picked wardrobe to try on in a store, according to the survey. Not stated were the viewpoints of those not interested in such an experience.

More than half (58%) of consumers also indicated a positive attitude toward the idea of having their grocer suggest a shopping list for their approval based on purchase history, social and environmental data, according to the survey.

However, there seems to be a limit.

For example, more than half of consumers surveyed said they found it to be intrusive to have a grocer automatically charge and ship items based on purchase history and other factors.

The details of the survey and specific survey questions were not yet available, but based on a sampling of results, it appears there are varying comfort limits to new technological capabilities.

Here are the top line results of the survey made available:

• 67% -- Like the option of near real-time delivery to their doorsteps by drones
• 64% -- Favorable to a having a retailer suggest a custom-made accessory for them produced with 3D printing
• 57% -- Find apparel recommendations from robots based on their social media profile to be invasive
• 54% -- View the concept of linking their wearable activity tracker to their pharmacy so they can suggest products to meet specific health and wellness needs as favorable (the top line results provided no detail on how favorable)
• 54% -- Agreed that having a grocer automatically charge and ship items based on purchase history, social and environment data was invasive
• 46% -- Agree that receiving real-time alerts on current product recalls, and time since last recall by a manufacturer, based on previous purchase history would improve their experience

Some IoT technologies clearly will be disruptive. However, consumers may have some limits as to how much disruption they are willing to take at a time.