Say hello to the grocery shopping of the future - no tills, no scanning, just shop and go
By Karishma Sarkari|
Long queues at the supermarket checkout and fights with the self-service till could soon be a thing of the past.
Grocery shopping is getting a high-tech makeover in both the US and UK, and while 9Honey understands it's a while off before the same happens in Australia, it's an exciting development for the humble weekly chore.
Watch the video above?.
In the UK the concept of grab-and-go has been expanding across multiple supermarket chains over the past few years.
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Sainsbury's first launched a till-free store in Central London back in 2019, before returning it to a regular store a few months later.
"It's clear that not all our customers are ready for a totally till-free store," they said at the time.
They left the option for customers who wanted to "pay on the app" but also operated as a regular store.
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In 2021, they tried again, this time using Amazon's "just walk out" Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology? for a Pay&Go system where you simply scan in and scan out at the store entry and that's it.
Similarly, Amazon have Amazon Fresh in the UK (also known as AmazonGo in the US), which takes the retail giant's offering offline, but still high-tech.
In the UK stores, you simply scan in via a QR code pick up whatever you like, which is automatically worked out as you lift items off shelves (no scanning barcodes required).
If you change your mind and pop an item back, it recognises this, all with the help of smart in-store cameras and sensors.
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Then, as you scan out of the store, your items are tallied up and you're billed via your online account and a receipt is sent straight to you.
In East London, there's also an Amazon Salon.? It offers the usual cut, colour, blow dries but also uses immersive technology to allow customers to try out styles before committing to them.
While in the US stores, the physical Amazon shops also include a place for your online parcel returns, where you can drop off items without having to repack or label them จC it all gets sorted for you.
Other supermarket chains in the UK to offer similar systems include Tesco, which has a GetGo store in Central London and has expanded the offering to a new hybrid store, where customers still have the option of a till to check and/or pay for purchases before ?leaving the store.
And Aldi UK is the newest to the market, with their first Shop & Go store opening in Greenwich, London?, in January this year.
It operates in the same way as Amazon and Tesco จC simply scan in, AI works out your bill and scan out again.
Unfortunately, Australian customers will have to wait a little longer for the technology to arrive on our doorstep.
Aldi Australia have no current plans to introduce a scan-and-go system and Amazon have no plans to launch physical grocery stores in Australia at the moment.
Coles has previously said it will introduce till-free stores around the country at some point over the next 10 years.
Woolworths introduced a checkout system called Scan&Go, which was first trialled in 2018 but is now in 66 stores around the county.
While it's not quite the same as the UK supermarket AI shopping experience, the contactless option has been dubbed "the faster, smarter way to shop for your groceries".
Customers similarly scan out at the exit to pay for groceries virtually but it requires each item to be scanned via the app as you go around the store.
However, it might not be too long before the retail giant expands that further, with a spokesperson telling 9Honey: "We're aware of these new concepts and will keep across these new developments in the UK."
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