Retail players are devising store concepts that minimise or even eliminate the checkout step. Photo: AFP
A loaf of bread, a can of soda, a pack of ham or a bag of potato chips – many of us often make a detour on the way home from the office to pick up a few items to round out the ingredients for dinner or just for a quick bite to eat when we’ve completely run out of culinary inspiration.
For these types of impromptu store runs, many of us try to avoid having to thread our way through an enormous supermarket as just a few essential items are on our list and time is of the essence.
It’s often a similar situation at lunchtime, when many working people are looking to quickly grab a ready-made salad or sandwich that they can eat at their desk between two meetings.
These are the types of products that retail giant Carrefour is stocking in its brand-new, unique store concept. The store is no bigger than a typical student apartment, measuring 18sq m or just under 200sq ft. And instead of being staffed with employees, the site is filled with refrigerated vending machines.
And your cell phone is a key tool on this shopping trip, in order to open the doors of these connected refrigerators where groceries are stored.
Planning to buy a kilogramme of apples? No problem, a scale is integrated into the system to deliver exactly the weight you request. The devices rely on AI to locate the requested products and generate the receipt.
This is the futuristic store concept recently unveiled in Belgium by Carrefour, which has decided to experiment with a totally autonomous (and automatic) store, according to information revealed by the specialist site Gondola.
The store is located in Zaventem, which is also home to the company’s Belgian headquarters, and is named BuyBye emphasising the idea of the consumer being able to quickly grab the essentials, quickly and go.
In fact, this spinoff of the Carrefour Express model even promises purchases in 15 seconds, according to a report by French consumer goods specialist Olivier Dauvers.
Operating without human intervention, this type of store operates seven days a week starting in January.
According to the website Retail Technology Innovation Hub, customers need to download an app and add a payment method to be able to shop in the store.
Other retail and logistics players including Amazon, Deliveroo and JD.com are experimenting with shopping models that eliminate the checkout step by calculating everything in a customer’s cart on an app and then activating the payment method before they leave the store. – AFP Relaxnews
