SUPERMARKETS SWAPPING CASHIERS FOR CAMERAS

See the latest technology and meet the companies at the leading edge as part of the AACS study tour to the US in October.

•  PARMY OLSON
• JULY 8, 2019

The Australian 

A man strolled down the candy aisle of a grocery store in England last month, picked up a bar of chocolate and stashed it in his back pocket. He wasn’t stealing.

Specially equipped surveillance cameras were tracking both his body and the products he was taking off the shelves, to help him pay for them.

Tesco, one of the world’s largest supermarket operators, demonstrated the technology recently to investors, labelling it as one of the retailer’s big ideas for making shopping at its physical stores more convenient. Tesco is one of several grocers testing cashierless stores with cameras that track what shoppers pick, so they pay by simply walking out the door.

The retailers hope the technology — similar to that pioneered by Amazon.com in its Amazon Go stores in the US — will allow them to cut costs and alleviate lines as they face an evolving threat from the e-commerce giant.

European efforts to scale up the technology in traditional stores — economically and without upsetting privacy advocates — will probably be closely watched in the US. Grocers in the UK often pioneer new technology like online delivery and self-payment kiosks that their American peers eventually adopt. For instance, Kroger last year hired Britain’s Ocado to build an automated warehouse filled with robots to fulfil home deliveries.

“People [in the US] will definitely take note of Tesco’s experimentation, if only because it shows someone outside of Amazon is now testing the concept,” said Chris Walton, a former Target executive and founder of consulting firm Red Archer Retail.

Tesco plans to open its self-styled “pick and go” or “frictionless shopping” store to the public next year after testing with employees. Eventually it wants to use the technology, developed by ­Israeli start-up Trigo Vision, in more of its smaller grocery stores.

Tesco’s test store uses 150 ceiling-mounted cameras to generate a three-dimensional view of products as they are taken off shelves. In its recent demo, Tesco’s system detected shoppers as they walked around the store. It also identified a group of products when a person holding them stood in front of a screen, tallying up their total price. Tesco is considering identifying shoppers through an app or loyalty card when they enter the store and then charging their app when they leave.

Tesco told investors its method costs one-tenth of systems used by its competitors, partly because it only uses cameras. Amazon Go uses cameras and sensors to track what shoppers pick. Amazon customers scan a QR code at a gate when they enter a store, then walk out when finished.

French retail giant Carrefour is also running tests in at least two stores where cameras track what is taken off shelves and shoppers are charged automatically when they leave. Carrefour is working with French start-up Qopius Technology, whose cameras can read labels on products.

At one time it used to be difficult to sell product-recognition technology to retailers, according to Vasco Portugal, co-founder of Sensei Tech.

“It seemed like crazy technology and it sounded like magic,” he said. That changed after Amazon Go launched last year. “Immediately we started seeing a lot of appetite,” he said.