Today, 24th of September 2018, Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in The Netherlands, enabled cashier- and cash free shopping in two of their stores. With a ‘tap-to-go’ card or Android app their customers can scan the barcodes of the products they would like to buy. After 10 minutes the purchased amount will be withdrawn automatically from their linked bank account. This means the customer doesn’t need to wait in line for a cashier or spend time paying at a self-scan machine, thus will spend less time in the store.
This concept makes all of us think about the Amazon Go concept, but the technique Amazon uses is completely different compared to Albert Heijn’s solution. Amazon Go uses cameras with computer vision to scan which items has been taken from the shelf by which customer. The computer vision system is trained with deep learning technology, which enables the cameras to recognize the distinguishable patterns in products and people. Interestingly enough, the cameras also see when a customer puts a product back on the shelves, whilst not using facial recognition. When I first read about Amazon Go a few years ago, I thought that this futuristic idea would disrupt the retail industry and their industry leaders. Fortunately, I am proud to see that ‘our own’ Albert Heijn responded on time with a different technology, whilst still reaching the goal of consumer convenience.
Now, as a Business Information Management student, it is interesting to see what opportunities come with this way of cashier- and cash free shopping. I will start with the following possibility: if customers scan their products while standing before a shelf, the retailer could better understand customer in-store behaviour and monitor consumer traffic. This enables retailers to not only offer personalized discounts or promotions based on product preference, but even based on in-store behaviour. In the future, they could offer an extra discount for a product you just put back on the shelf or use in-store promotion screens who recognize your tap-to-go card and adjust their promotion to your preferences and the shelf you are standing at.
I am sure that Amazon and Albert Heijn didn’t use the only technologies who could enable cashier-and cash free shopping. Also, I believe that there are way more possibilities enabled by cashier-and cash free shopping. Let me know in the comments which technologies and opportunities you would relate to cashier-and cash free shopping!
Sources:
https://dzone.com/articles/impact-of-big-data-analytics-in-retail-industry-te
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-go-seattle-uk-store-how-does-work
