The Editors’ Perspectives column provides insights and opinions from the Retail TouchPoints editorial team as we dig into the latest trends in retail, marketing, and technology.
this month retail touchpoints In our series, we investigated the current state of autonomous checkout experiences. From self-checkout to going out. Simply put, no one is a big fan of self-checkout kiosks, but that doesn’t mean they’re going anywhere anytime soon.Fully autonomous stores, etc. Amazon‘s Just Walk Out was a little ahead of its time, with success largely limited to small, targeted environments like arenas and hospitals.
But there is a more centrist area of self-checkout that is currently growing by leaps and bounds. smart cart.What better way to learn more about this new technology than to try it yourself? Luckily, it’s in my hometown! shop light Just started offering instacart‘s caper cartSo I had the opportunity to get a few jobs done while doing my weekly grocery shopping (talk about multitasking).
Smart Cart: How retailers can “get their foot in the door”
A smart cart is essentially a self-checkout kiosk on wheels that allows shoppers to ring when they add items to their cart.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest in localized smart checkout scenarios, especially in grocery stores, supermarkets, and mass retailers,” said Sandeep Unni, senior director and retail analyst in Gartner’s research and advisory division. said in an interview. retail touchpoints. “The smart shopping cart is [an easy way for] Retailers step in [autonomous checkout]. Smart carts are equipped with similar technology, although the barrier to entry is lower than store-wide autonomous implementations. It uses computer vision and AI, and many products have scales to weigh produce. Smart cards do not replace the traditional shopping experience; they are merely an addition to it.”
One of the largest smart cart companies expanding into retailers is Instacart’s Caper Carts. The grocery e-commerce platform acquired Caper Carts in his 2021 year, CEO Fidji Simo said during the company’s first quarter earnings call earlier this month. thousands of What makes Caper Carts even more appealing to retailers is the recently introduced on-screen advertising capabilities of smart carts, offering an opportunity to increase revenue.
Amazon is another big player in the smart cart space with the added benefit of its own brick-and-mortar footprint. In April, the company announced it would remove Just Walk Out technology from its website. amazon fresh Double up on Dash Carts instead of stores. In addition to rolling out to all Fresh stores, Dash Cart is already available in select stores. whole foods It’s available in stores as well as many other retailers besides Amazon.
“At large grocery stores, customers so far prefer Amazon Dash Cart because they make big trips and buy more items each week.It uses the same advanced computer vision technology as Just Walk Out,” Amazon said in a statement about the changes in Fresh stores. “At these big-box stores, Dash Carts not only help customers skip the checkout line, but act as a shopping companion that moves with them through the store, helping them find products on-screen with maps and navigation. , helps you get a personalized shopping experience, while tracking your savings and spending in real-time. ”
So what happens when you actually shop with a smart cart?
Let me just say right off the bat, there’s one person who isn’t a fan. That’s my girlfriend’s 4 year old daughter. She accompanied me on my Saturday research trip, and she was furious that she didn’t have a seat of her own (to be fair to her, a 4-year-old could easily That’s true) and, To make matters worse, she couldn’t ride sideways for fear of upsetting the built-in scale.
Now, if the only unhappy customers are cranky kids, I think smart carts still have a bright future. But I wasn’t a big fan myself either.
I’m reasonably tech-savvy and, after all, write about retail technology for a living, so I personally found the cart to be pretty easy to use, but it still has some major issues. As with most autonomous solutions, the biggest one is agricultural products. Caper Carts has a weight scale built into the cart’s basket, which works pretty well, but you have to find the product’s PLU and enter it into the cart’s touchscreen.
Now, these PLUs are usually easy to spot on the nice little stickers on most fruits and vegetables. Unless, of course, there are no stickers. The upside was that I learned things I didn’t know, courtesy of a friendly Caper Carts rep. The friendly Caper Carts representative put all of us newbies at ease. PLU is the last 4-5 digits of her SKU, so you can also find it by searching. At the shelf label. Still, I’d put that process pretty high on the friction scale.
Price tracking is a key benefit of smart carts, but the drawbacks outweigh them
Another thing that the Caper Carts rep pointed out during my short training was; The advantage is that you can immediately check the price and total amount while shopping. The grapes will eventually $17?! No, it will be back on the shelf right away.
This is one of the great benefits of these mobile cash registers, especially at a time when grocery prices are soaring and many of us are strapped for change. Another money-saving feature: When you log in to your cart using your ShopRite points card, Check promotions and add coupons on cart screen.
Unfortunately, in my case there were too many other drawbacks.
- First (and for me, most important): Couldn’t save time. Taking the extra time to enter all the produce, make sure everything you put in your cart is populated correctly, and clearing errors (which happened a few times) can add up to a lot of waiting throughout the trip. It ended up taking as long as it would have taken if I had stood in line and had someone else do all the work. Since it was my first time, I have to insert a caveat that it might be slower than normal users. As with any technology, the more you get used to it, the easier and faster it will be to use.
- The second big problem is Cart wasn’t big enough (Even without a daughter). As a family of four, I shop for her once a week, so it’s hard to go grocery shopping. The Caper Carts representative initially told me that the cart probably only had space for about one car. 55 item. Of course, this is just a baseline and there will be some variation based on the size of the item you get. Anyway, I cherry-picked the list and ended up with exactly 55 items, at which point my cart looked like this. full. In addition to the fact that I needed more things and couldn’t get them, the camera sensors in the top four corners of the cart definitely started getting more finicky as the cart filled up. This was probably because the items were obstructing the view. No matter how you look at it, it’s not suitable for large purchases.
- Third, and this is relatively trivial, You still need to check out to pay. While it’s definitely much easier than a typical self-checkout, as all you have to do is scan the screen on your cart, it still doesn’t save you time during high-traffic hours without having to wait in line. There is a possibility.
Using the smart cart reminded me of my first self-checkout experience. I didn’t like the technology at first, but over time I got used to it and got better at it. Still, for big trips, I always go through the manned lanes.
in contrast, My first experience with an autonomous store was nothing short of magical and I completely understood the concept. In certain retail environments. If you’ve ever been to a trade show at Javits in New York (or any trade show in a convention center, really), you know what a waste of time and fun it is to buy lunch. . There aren’t enough places nearby and there’s always a terrible line. It’s a terrible line that lasts for 30 minutes. But two years ago at the NRF Retail Conference, Amazon installed a JWO store (now permanently located) in the main concourse. Desperate after seeing the lines at the food hall, I pushed through my fears and gave it a try. Now you don’t have to go anywhere else to eat at Javits.
However, when it comes to smart carts and weekly ShopRite trips, I’m going to stick with my regular old analog shopping cart for now.
