09.07.21
A Dubai mall received its first store free of cashiers this week, paving the way for a new era of futuristic supermarkets.
At experimental shop Carrefour City+, shoppers’ movements are tracked with a sophisticated system while using the Carrefour smartphone app. This allows them to obtain items they’ll leave with, thereby obliterating the need for lengthy checkout lines. Customers grant Carrefour permission to collect their information, which the company keeps private per protocol.
With dozens of mini surveillance cameras lining the ceiling and numerous sensors on the shelves, customers receive their receipts on their smartphones within minutes of leaving the store with bagged items.
Hani Weiss, chief operating officer at Majid Al Futtaim, the franchise that operates Carrefour in the Middle East, told the Associated Press that the futuristic supermarket is the future of grocery shopping, which he envisions entailing a novel, automated experience. This is becoming a trend as major retailers across the globe including retail giant Amazon are merging machine-learning software and artificial intelligence to singlehandedly reduce labor costs and time spent on lines while amassing important data on shopping behavior.
While a shift to futuristic supermarkets would mean drastic job loss across the industry, human laborers are needed for customer and machine assistance, Weiss said.