Supermarket giant Sainsbury's opens the first British no-purchase store

One of the largest supermarkets in the UK has opened a non-cash shopping store. All customers of the Sainsbury convenience store, in Holborn Circus, London, will scan and pay for their purchases with the help of an app they will download on their smartphone.

When shoppers are walking around the store, they scan the items they want to buy, pay using an app, and then scan a QR code to confirm that they have paid.

The store has been refurbished for the new technology, with its box and crates removed. The pilot project will last three months, Sainsbury announced on Monday.

A helpdesk has been set up to help customers who wish to pay in cash or by card. Sainsbury's stated that 82% of transactions at the store were cashless.

"It's an experience rather than a new format. It's never been done in the UK and we're really excited to understand how our customers are responding to it." 39 "experience in the application," said Clodagh Moriarty, director of digital technologies at Sainsbury Group, said in a statement.

"We will be supporting our customers and colleagues throughout the coming months, and we will be continually iterating based on their feedback before deciding whether, how and where we make this experience more widely available," added Moriarty.

A number of companies are introducing technology that could transform the way people buy in stores. The American technology giant Amazon, for example, has opened a number of Amazon Go stores without purchase in Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco.

Customers use their Amazon Go app to enter the store, where technology detects when items are removed from the shelves and placed in a "virtual shopping cart". Once their purchases are complete, customers leave the store, their Amazon account being debited soon after.

Earlier this month, however, a spokeswoman for Amazon confirmed by email to CNBC that the company was considering accepting cash in its Go stores.

The spokesperson described the process as follows: "you will check, pay in cash, then you will receive your currency".

"We are working to accept cash payments on Amazon Go," added the spokesman.

CNBC Eugene Kim contributed to this report