Cashierless Checkout on Aisle 10. Only Aisle 10.

AACS visited Zippin as part of our 2019 overseas study tour

Cashierless Checkout on Aisle 10. Only Aisle 10. 

THE SPOON

28 May 2020

One of the big questions surrounding the rollout of cashierless checkout as it was emerging last year was how well it could scale. Outfitting a small convenience store with cameras and sensors a la Amazon Go is one thing. Expanding that to tens of thousands of square feet in a full-on supermarket is quite another.

It’s not just a question of the technology scaling affordably, but also how easily large supermarket chains could adopt it. Big grocery retailers have thousands of locations and are like battleships–they can’t turn on a dime. They need solutions that work at scale right away.

But Zippin’s new store-within-a-store at a Moscow grocer suggests that cashierless checkout’s future might not be an all-or-nothing proposition for big retailers. At its new Azbuka Vkusa location, Zippin turned just one aisle of that store into a cashierless checkout lane.

The aisle is blocked at one end, with a special QR code-reading turnstile installed at the other. The aisle is stocked with “80 percent” items — that is, the ones most frequently purchased — so it’s a mish-mash of products rather than being the “bread section.”

Zippin’s partial solution is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it’s a proof of concept for how Big Food retailers can dip their toe in the cahierless pool without jumping (and investing) all the way in.

Second, it provides a contacless way for people to grocery shop quickly. This aspect could actually prove to be more appealing to retailers wanting to protect their in-store workers than the convenience cahierless gives shoppers.

And finally, it may help with the equity issues around cashierless checkout. Cashierless checkout only works if you have access to a phone and a credit card. But there are a lot of under- and un-banked populations in the country in the U.S. who don’t and would thereby be shut out of cashierless experience. Having a cashierless only aisle doesn’t solve all the equity issues with that system, but at least it doesn’t prevent a person from going into a store.

The reason I bring all this up is that there are a lot of startups looking to retrofit existing grocers with cashierless checkout technology. Trigo, Grabango, Standard Cognition just a few, not to mention that Amazon is looking to license its cashierless checkout to other retailers as well.

With its Azbuka Vkusa store-within-a-store, Zippin becomes the first such startup to publicly show off its partial cashierless product. Other retailers looking to get in on that action may see the real world result and start knocking on Zippin’s door.