Many sectors are facing chronic staff shortages as a result of various factors such as lack of available labour and staff sickness. The retail sector is not exempt, but there are possible solutions on the market to reduce the reliance on labour in this sector.
Shopic, which bills itself as 'The world's smartest cart solution' is a AI-powered clip-on device which turns any standard shopping cart into a smart cart. While attached, it uses computer vision cameras to recognize when shoppers add or remove items and then allows them to skip the checkout lines.
"This system has many benefits for shoppers," explains Raz Golan CEO of Shopic. "It is very easy to use and can be personalised. It gives the consumer a running total and information about the products they put in their carts. At the end of the shop the products are already bagged and payment is simple."
For retailers the benefits are the same as ecommerce, they can communicate with consumers through promotions on the screen and also collect data about what the consumer is buying. Consumers can create an account or can shop anonymously.
"The device has two cameras using real-time computer vision to record what goes in, and out of the cart. When it come to weight-based products such a fresh produce it has to be placed on a scale and the consumer selects which product is in the bag and a barcode is produced when is then run under the camera.
"The technology uses algorithms so the more data we collect the more the system learns. There are different screens for the weighing scales, this depends on the retailers, but the more data we can collect then the more we can recognise which varieties of apple, orange or grape it is and offer the consumer less options to choose from on screen. It is possible that the camera could eventually differentiate between varieties."
The Shopic technology started as a hand held scan&go device but quickly progressed to the cart clip on model.
"We have seen a very fast adoption of our technology, customer satisfaction rates are 90-95%. Before the issue was the cost of labour but now it is the lack of labour which is driving this technology. It means that retailers can utilise existing labour much better.
Shopic is already available in the US, European and South American markets, as well as Israel.
For more information:
Shelly Dekalo
Tel:+972 53 932 6240
[email protected]