In these stores of the future, you take things and go

These measures to eliminate the coffers (or at least to flirt with oblivion) ​​are linked to the fact that consumers are spending more and more money on their online purchases. According to eMarketer data, this year, e-commerce in the United States is expected to climb 16% to $ 525.7 billion, or nearly 10% of total retail sales in the country.

Customers also spend more time comparing purchases and reading products online before going to a store with a specific purchase in mind, rather than browsing as we did before the boom of online shopping .

In response, companies want to give customers more reasons to keep coming, which means more and more that the experience is more convenient.

Katherine Cullen, Director of Information on Industry and Consumers for the National Retail Federation, expects that in the next few years, large retailers in particular are investing in stand-alone cashier systems .

"The reason people are entering the store is changing, their expectations of convenience are changing, and that is giving rise to a lot of the technology we're seeing," she said.

Cameras everywhere

Companies that build standalone cash systems are different, but the technology they use is generally similar. Typically, stores rely on an application to register customers in the store, as well as on a network of cameras that operate with machine learning algorithms (formed from objects). this are in the store to find out if you are going out with a can of Pepsi or Coca-Cola.

Stores also sell many packaged products, such as canned or bottled drinks, candy bags or yogurt containers, which can be quite simple to teach software (unlike clothes on a hanger or individual fruits).

But the experience of shopping in the stores can be very different. When you enter an Amazon Go store, you must scan your phone to open a door. only then can you walk down the aisles to buy canned meal kits or banana and turmeric lbadi. During a recent trip to the San Francisco Open Air Store (a second one is under construction), I spotted a number of employees who could help me with questions or questions. m & # 39; s help. Buyers too filled the little space.

In the Standard Cognition Store, nothing prevents you from entering. The 2,000-square-foot location, which opened its doors in the San Francisco market street at the end of August, has 27 ceiling-facing cameras, allowing guests to be tracked in a 3D space as they pbad from one view to the other.

Once inside, you are supposed to hold your phone, facing upwards, so that it can be scanned from above to register you. Two employees were present when I arrived – one of them helped me in the registration process – but it was otherwise calm. Michael Suswal, co-founder and COO of Standard Cognition, said the company is limiting the number of visitors to five people at a time, as its engineers strive to make the software more secure than it sees; Standard Cognition plans to allow larger groups from December.

And in Tel Aviv, Trigo Vision reached an agreement with the Israeli supermarket chain Shufersal to use its technology in 272 stores. Jenya Beilin, chief operating officer of Trigo Vision, said that buyers in Israel will be able to try it in the next 10 months.

Humans and obstacles

Even though AI is more capable in the shops, most of the companies I spoke with are convinced that those who are currently working as cashiers will still be needed.

Maniar points to the rise of self-checkout in stores like those of his former employer, Target, as an example of what could happen if stand-alone payment became more common. At first, he said, employees feared that their job would go away, but it was convenient for buyers and employees to take on other roles in the store.

And there are still many technological and social hurdles to overcome in order for the self-help caisses to function properly and for the customers (and the incentives) to remain interested in shopping this way.

Even with packaged products, it is difficult to accurately track the items that people take and put back.

Customers can also outsmart the system. For example, at Standard Store, I picked up two identical bags of Chex Mix at the same time with one hand – which is an effort to fool cameras and software – and my receipt only contained one .

"When people try to steal something good," Suswal said once I told him what I had done.

He was not joking either. His company can take the video footage of my journey of purchase and use it to form the company's AI system to better recognize the flight.

Even though I'll be able to get a free bag of snacks, I'd be angry if the Standard Store charged me more than I'd taken. Ed Fox, a marketing professor at Southern Methodist University, who studies consumer behavior, stresses the importance of ensuring that this technology works consistently and repeatedly, as error resolution will take a long time.

"If you have an error rate of two, three or four percent, it's unacceptable for a buyer," he said.

Cashless cashier systems are also expensive – Beilin said that the installation of Trigo Vision's camera and other hardware system in an area of ​​1,800 square feet was costing about $ 30,000, as well as recurring costs. which could prevent or slow adoption by supermarkets. and the warehouses reserved for members.

Eddie Garcia, vice president of end-to-end experience at Sam's Club, said the economic conditions were "very difficult" to install this type of system in a 150,000-square-foot warehouse (198). Clubs, with an average size of 130,000 to 150,000 square feet).

The company recently opened a technical test store called Sam's Club Now in Dallas, Texas, where customers pay with their phones and use it to find products in the store. There is no traditional cashier, but he stops before offering a standalone cashier.

That's not to say that Sam's Club will not consider such technology, though.

"We will see where customers bring us in terms of their preferences," Garcia said. "And we'll be ready if that's where the puck goes."