The retail industry has evolved from spreadsheet-driven analysis to real-time AI that fundamentally transforms how stores operate, understand customer behavior, and prevent losses. What once required endless big data querying now happens automatically. Neural networks learn store patterns, computer vision tracks inventory and detects theft, and AI systems interact directly with shoppers as they browse.

This transformation accelerated through a few breakthrough moments: the 2012 rise of deep learning neural networks that extract insights from raw data, the 2020 development of industry-specific AI models, and today’s real-time deployment capabilities. Modern retail AI operates across three critical dimensions; computer vision for operational intelligence, fraud detection and loss prevention, and dynamic customer engagement that responds instantly to shopper behavior.

Computer Vision Reduces Friction and Optimizes Store Operations

Computer vision is redefining how retail leaders manage their physical environments. AI systems can use existing and new camera infrastructure to identify products, monitor shelf inventory and planogram compliance, trigger stock replenishment alerts, and analyze customer movement. AI systems can therefore improve store layout, assortment, product availability, traffic, and overall operations. Stores historically relied on manual activities to do all the above, but today advanced AI-based image analysis and reasoning enable retailers to automate many of those processes and further optimize their in-store operations.

For example, a smart cart can turn a regular cart into a smart, AI-driven, multi-sensor machine that “roams” the aisles at the store with the customer and collects valuable data in real time. In addition, the smart cart acts as a personal checkout on wheels, recognizing items when added, enabling payment on cart, and reducing the need for waiting in checkout lines.  Additionally, computer vision can tune store layouts to improve traffic flow and improve merchandising, and product discoverability. This results in frictionless, enjoyable shopping experiences for customers.

Real-Time Intelligence Personalizes Shopping Experiences

One of the biggest wins is to use AI to bridge the “personalization gap” between in-store and online shopping experiences. In e-commerce, it’s easy to track customers’ clicks, views, and purchase history and personalize offers in real-time. With the integration of AI, IoT and sensor fusion at the store, physical stores can pick up behaviors and data points such as picking up a bottle of wine and putting it back on the shelf, the location of the shopper, and products added to the cart, giving retailers a new layer of customer data.

These granular insights enable real-time personalization of promotions, advertisements, offers,  content, and smart cart nudges, such as recipe or ingredient suggestions. The cart becomes more than a vehicle and evolves into a digital, real-time engagement platform between the retailer and the customer, creating a seamless transition between online and in-store shopping. With Generative AI and LLMs, these insights are no longer siloed in dashboards or analytics tools. They can be delivered as natural language prompts that any customer, staff or manager can act on instantly. This democratization of data is helping retailers make better decisions for their customers faster and enabling customers to enjoy a smarter, well-informed, and more rewarding shopping experience.

Protecting Margins with Fraud Detection and Loss Prevention

Shrinkage due to theft continues to be a multi-billion dollar problem, accounting for 35-40% of retail losses, according to NRF. By combining computer vision and behavioral analysis, AI can now understand how a shopper moves through the store, how long they dwell on certain items, how many times they add and void certain products, and changes in the cart to identify whether cart activity seems suspicious. AI does this by detecting anomalies, defining confidence scores and decisions on if and how to treat a transaction as suspicious, while minimizing flagging honest shoppers. This layered approach goes beyond security cameras and uses pattern recognition to intervene early and subtly without disrupting customers’ experiences.

A Modular, Scalable, and Interactive Future

The next wave of innovation will lie in combining foundational AI models with domain-specific applications tailored to retail. It’s not just about more powerful LLMs, but building the right ones. Major retailers like Walmart have internal teams that build custom AI solutions. However, most others need turnkey systems that are scalable, modular, and easily deployable. Industry leaders are helping build AI ecosystems that simultaneously support infrastructure and user experience.

The future isn’t just intelligent, but also interactive– where AI doesn’t just process data, but actively engages with customers. For instance, imagine a store where AI assists shoppers in real-time, helping manage their lists while getting personalized recommendations. Along with innovation comes responsibility, and retailers must prioritize data governance, privacy, and transparency. Customer consent and ethical AI use are non-negotiables.

AI isn’t just a technological upgrade for retailers, but an enabler of more intelligent, efficient, and human-centered experiences. It can enhance security, reduce friction, and drive personalization to unlock powerful business insights. Retailers who embrace this shift and balance innovation with empathy will be the leaders who shape the future of in-store shopping. The AI revolution is here to stay and is just getting started.

Elkana Porag

Article from: https://technologyaiinsights.com/the-ai-revolution-in-physical-retail-transforming-shopping-experiences/

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Guest Post | What’s next for smart cart technology, asks Cust2Mate’s Yaniv Zukerman?

Remember when self-checkout stations were the next big thing in retail, promising faster shopping, shorter queues and a more convenient experience?

The idea was simple: let shoppers scan and bag their own groceries, skip the line and get on with their day. But as it turns out, the reality hasn’t quite met expectations, says Yaniv Zukerman, CMO of Cust2Mate.

As the SCO revolution is quietly being rolled back, here he explores how this is paving new ways to enhance customer experience.

Why self-checkout isn’t working out

If you’ve ever stood in front of a self-checkout machine, frantically trying to scan a stubborn barcode while the SCO blares “unexpected item in the bagging area,” you’re not alone. These stations were meant to streamline shopping, but for many, they’ve become a source of frustration. There is also that shoppers feel they are now “working” for the retailer, the entire process takes longer because they are not proficient in doing the scanning, and self-checkout systems have created their own queues, defeating the initial purpose of saving time.

Premium supermarket chain, Booths, axed almost all self-service tills in its stores in response to customer demand. More recently, U.S. retailer, Dollar General made headlines by pulling SCO stations from about 12,000 stores, while Walmart has implemented policies where only loyalty programme members can use self-checkout, with designated SCO lanes for Walmart+ customers.

Rising theft rates have created a significant challenge, as SCO makes it easier for items to go unscanned, whether intentionally or accidentally. Customer service problems compound these issues when the machines malfunction or shoppers struggle with the technology, requiring staff intervention that defeats the purpose of automation.

Rather than freeing up employees as intended, self-checkout systems often simply redirect their efforts toward troubleshooting technical problems and supervising the checkout process, creating operational inefficiencies that can increase labour costs.

Smart Cart technology steps in

So, if self-checkout isn’t the answer, what’s next? That’s where smart cart technology steps in. For consumers, this means you can walk into a store, grab a shopping trolley and, as you add and scan items, the cart tallies and adds them to your digital receipt. No fumbling at a SCO station or waiting for assistance, when you’re done shopping, you simply pay and walk out.

Smart carts earn their “smart” designation through a combination of advanced technologies that transform the traditional shopping experience. They feature integrated security systems that use scanners, cameras and weight sensors to meticulously identify and track every item placed in the trolley. This ensures accurate transactions and significantly reducing the potential for theft or mistakes.

The technology also provides real-time feedback to shoppers, displaying a continuously updated running total of their purchases, delivering personalised deals based on their real-time shopping patterns and offering instant access to detailed product information as they browse.

Most importantly this real-time capability enables retailers to engage with shoppers at the precise moment of decision-making, when customers are actively browsing, considering purchases and are most receptive to relevant offers and information. They also create a seamless shopping experience by eliminating the traditional friction of retail shopping, as shoppers scan their items, the payment processes while moving alongside the customer, removing the need for separate checkout queues and creating a smooth, uninterrupted journey from product selection to purchase completion.

Beyond merely addressing existing problems, smart carts create entirely new opportunities for retailers to engage with customers through real-time interactions and personalised recommendations, fundamentally reshaping the relationship between stores and shoppers. This real-time engagement transforms the shopping experience from a simple transaction into a dynamic, interactive dialogue between retailer and customer that unfolds precisely when purchase decisions are being made.

One of the more innovative ways smart carts will change the retail landscape is their potential for retail media. Imagine walking through the store and seeing personalised offers pop up on your trolley’s screen – maybe a discount on your favourite snack or a reminder about something you usually buy. This real-time interaction allows retailers to influence behaviour when it matters most, rather than relying on post-purchase follow-up or pre-visit marketing. This isn’t just convenient for shoppers; it’s a new way for retailers and brands to engage customers, drive sales and measure results immediately.

Looking ahead: transformation beyond a tech upgrade

The shift from self-checkout to smart carts represents more than just a technological upgrade, it’s a fundamental reimagining of the retail experience. As these systems become more widespread, we’re likely to see even more innovative features. Integration with loyalty programmes, personalised nutrition recommendations and even linking with smart home systems are all on the horizon.

Perhaps most significantly, smart carts serve as the ultimate bridge between on- and off-line retail experiences. They bring the personalised recommendations, real-time inventory updates and seamless payment processing that customers have come to expect from ecommerce directly into physical store environments.

Shoppers can access their online purchase history, receive suggestions based on their digital browsing patterns and enjoy the same level of customisation they experience when shopping from their devices, all while physically touching, examining and immediately taking home the products they want. This convergence finally delivers the long-promised “omnichannel” experience that truly feels unified rather than fragmented.

For retailers, smart carts offer a path forward that addresses the operational challenges that made self-checkout unsustainable while creating new opportunities for engagement and revenue. For customers, smart trolleys deliver far more than just simplicity – after all, traditional carts and checkout lines might actually be simpler. Instead, smart carts add genuine value by making each shopping visit smarter, more informed, more efficient and ultimately more worthwhile. They transform routine grocery runs into personalised, data-driven experiences where shoppers discover relevant products, access real-time information and make better purchasing decisions while saving time and avoiding frustration.

The future of retail isn’t about eliminating human interaction; it’s about using technology to enhance it. People want convenience, speed and ease in their shopping trips. Smart carts promise to deliver just that.

Yaniv Zukerman is the CMO of Cust2Mate.

Cust2Mate is a leader in smart shopping cart technology.

Article from: https://retailrewired.co.uk/2025/07/24/guest-post-whats-next-for-smart-cart-technology-asks-cust2mates-yaniv-zukerman/

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By Gadi Graus, CEO Cust2Mate, on Unite.ai,  June 26, 2024

Article from: https://www.unite.ai/redirecting-humans-with-machines/

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By Calcalist, June 4, 2024

The Israeli Cust2Mate smart cart from the Nasdaq-traded company A2Z won the award for the best smart cart for 2024 at the RetailTech Breakthrough Awards, an international competition that takes place every year and examines all the technological developments in the world that pertain to the world of retail. The judges in the competition examine the various developments based on the level of innovation, performance, the user experience and operation, the functionality, the value of the development and its impact on the problem it is trying to solve.

Today, 87% of consumers prefer to shop in stores that allow independent payment without going through the cash registers, and according to the judges, the Cust2Mate smart cart was able to provide the best solution for this for 2024. The Cust2Mate smart cart allows the consumer to shop smartly, friendly and securely and pay at the cart without standing in lines at the cash registers. In addition, the cart scans the products placed into the cart, allows independent weighing, offers personalized deals, and assists customers in making economical, functional and educated decisions based on specific needs such as food preferences, kosher and allergies. On the part of the retailer, the cart makes it possible to provide an upgraded user experience, to get a more accurate understanding of customer behavior and needs and use a personalized marketing platform within the stores.

Also, the company’s latest development, Cust2Mate 3.0 carts, includes a detachable panel with a 13.3-inch interactive touch screen, which can be mounted on traditional carts and turn them into smart carts. The latest development also provides an answer to the phenomenon of theft, and with its help it is possible to identify abnormal behavior with the help of artificial intelligence, sensors and other advanced technologies.

The competition is held on behalf of Tech Breakthrough, an American organization with an international presence that specializes in market research and market intelligence in the field of technology and innovation.

Gadi Graus, CEO of Cust2Mate, said: “Winning a major international award that takes into account all the startups and technological developments in the world of retail is an amazing recognition of how innovative our company and the team and a testament to the potential of our solution to transform the world of retail. We work diligently to continue and push forward our smart cart, and we will not stop until consumers from all over the world can enjoy an innovative, convenient, informed and faster shopping experience.”

Article from: https://www.calcalist.co.il/article/h1p53b24c

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I recently had a conversation with Yaniv Zukerman from Cust2Mate about the transformative impact of technology on retail shopping. We explored the development of smart shopping carts designed to simplify the shopping process for consumers while enhancing operational efficiency for retailers. Yaniv shared insights on how these carts can address challenges like inventory shrinkage and optimize store performance through strategic data use.

Yaniv also highlighted how their technology integrates features of online shopping into the physical store experience. As you maneuver the cart through store aisles, it provides personalized recommendations and promotions tailored to your shopping habits. This technology not only customizes the shopping experience but also creates new avenues for stores to connect with their customers.

Our discussion covered the implementation of these smart carts in locations like Morton Williams, with prospects for broader adoption across the Americas. It’s exciting to consider how such innovations could redefine the future of retail, making it more interactive and attuned to consumer preferences.

The conversation offered a glimpse into what might soon become a regular feature in supermarkets worldwide.

Mike Giambattista 

Yaniv Zukerman is CMO at Cust2Mate and I’ll let Yaniv give a better description of Cust2Mate’s unique offering. But I had a chance to get introduced to the product and the thinking behind it at NRF earlier this year, and one I don’t claim to any real expertise in that field, but even without any real expertise in the field I can tell that, uh, from a layman’s perspective it’s kind of a game changer. Uh, my opinion only. But, um, thank you for joining me, really appreciate it. Um, hopefully you can do a better job of describing uh, the, the product, and it’s kind of uh place within the broader grocery market space than I have.

Yaniv Zukerman 

So first, mike, thank you for having me, thank you for the opportunity.

I always like talking about our product and solutions and technology and everything that has to do with retail and customer experience per se. It’s kind of a habit for me for many years. So I think we have a solution. First, it’s a smart shopping cart. It’s a cart, it’s smart. It helps you do your shopping in a better way, in a faster way, with better ease, more value, less time being spent, less friction.

That’s from the point of the shopper, but it also helps the business of the retailer, both, and certainly because we help make their customers happier, and happier customers are more loyal customers, and more loyal customers eventually contribute to the top line and your bottom line over time, but also immediately, quite immediately.

But more than that, we enable them to open the door for new business models. Business models we help them optimize their in-store operations, first by automating the checkout to a very large extent, but also by using the data that is being collected throughout all the shopping journeys of all the customers using our carts, which is a goldmine, as you can expect. And another issue that we help them with is the issue of inventory shrinkage, of retail theft. We all know how dire the situation right now is out there, and this is another thing we help. We cannot help them completely raise this issue, but we hope them protect their transactions and their equipment the smart card equipment in a better way, especially when you compare it to other alternatives. So better results, better business results, better customer experience, better operations and bottom line.

Mike Giambattista 

I’d like to see our solution as something that we help our retail customers bring the online experience into the physical store, into the physical shopping experience and correct me if I’m wrong here, but as I understood it, Cust2Mate’s smart cart solution is essentially a modular one, in that it can be used and kind of bolted onto, if you will, any existing shopping cart. It doesn’t require a full re-inventorying of the fleet of shopping carts. Basically, whatever the fleet looks like right now, you can bolt this smart cart solution onto it and it works really well. So one I think that’s a pretty significant differentiator and I’m only speaking anecdotally here from my very limited experiences. But we have a grocery store which we frequent here. It’s a pretty good one.

They’re pretty progressive who implemented a smart cart, I’m going to say about six or eight months ago, and I’m not going to say who they are because it’s terrible, it’s just a horrific user experience. I mean, almost from the first interaction with it. You’re kind of going this is just awful and it just gets worse from there. Um, and now that I had something to compare it to from my experiences with with you and guy at NRF, it’s remarkable that the difference, the different ways people are coming at this particular problem, um, so I wanted to talk a little bit about how custom mate has thought about the user experience here, because, uh, I’m sure that that the smart cart solution at my grocery store also delivers, um, a gold mine of of data. Um, I mean, they kind of all do that. It is not a modular solution like Cust2Mates is, but the user experience is utterly awful. It’s just terrible. And yet the user experience with Cust2Mates is stellar. There’s a big difference in there, so maybe we can talk about the thinking that went into that.

Yaniv Zukerman 

Sure, sure, with pleasure. So I think the first or even our own first generation of cards did not did such a stellar job as you mentioned right now. It was quite similar to the ones that you have experienced and many of our competitors still offer to the market, which are big, bulky, fully integrated, very hard to handle, very hard to maneuver within the store, and a lot of effort was put into the technology, as many of them are coming as technology companies rather than retail or customer experience-focused companies and retail or customer experience focused companies, and hence the results that you’ve just described your own personal result. So we’ve learned from our own experience and from our customers, both the retailers and the end users, what needs to be remedied, what needs to be changed in order to improve the customer experience, and that led us eventually to the development and the introduction of our smart cart 3.0 generation, which is a game changer, as you mentioned. It’s completely different and it’s modular. And, first and foremost, as we think about customer experience, we think of the end customer experience, but also the retailer experience and the employee’s experience how they need eventually to operate the carts within the store, because even if the customer would be satisfied and the employees wouldn’t like our solution. That won’t work either, so that’s another thing we need to consider. So the first conclusion we arrived to pretty immediately is that we need to make it much more agile, less heavier, less bulky, something that resembles as much as possible the existing smart card. So we thought, okay, let’s take an existing smart card and just build on top of that without the need to change this, and that immediately led us to the understanding that we need to, eventually, the smart card. Most of the smart card lies within the smart panel, both. The screen is there, the computer is there, the sensors are there, everything is almost there, and now we just need to place it on wheels. The integration, of course, is digital. Okay, you’re doing via communication with the IT systems of the retailers.

So we transform this, and what we’re providing right now is a kit, a kit, a smart kit, which encompass the smart panel and the security scale, the security scale. That is one of the layers that we provide to mitigate the inventory shrinkage issues which I’ve mentioned before. This is a kit that you can mount on top of existing carts within a matter of. If you are very well trained, it could take you five minutes. If you are less trained. Let’s say, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and that’s it, and the cart is ready to go. And this is a game changer. On top of that, it makes the entire logistics of transforming this, installing this, maintaining this, much more streamlined than anything else. It helps us lower the costs Eventually.

If we want to be successful with the customers and the customers, we need to provide a good ROI. So we had to lower the costs, especially when we are in a competitive situation, and it enables our customers to scale up at their own pace. They can start big, they can start small, but they can really scale up because eventually we don’t need as much space as the bulkier carts need. It’s much more modular, it’s much more small. The floor space that is needed is significantly smaller. And, last but not least, now the customer can take the cart outside of the store. So this is really one nice frictionless shopping process, from the moment he steps into the store, takes our cart with the panel, mounts the smart panel, does its shopping check out on the cart and it can leave outside with the cart. So that’s really the bottom line of what we intended to and what we are achieving right now.

Mike Giambattista 

Yeah, again, I’m not going to divulge the name of your competitor. Actually, I intentionally forgot it.

Yaniv Zukerman 

I can sense who it is Geographically wise.

Mike Giambattista 

I can imagine who are these people, but in this case it’s so counterintuitive that they actually have an employee dedicated to showing customers how to use the cart. When you pick it up, there’s somebody who kind of gives you an orientation, and then that person is available and kind of follows the smart carts around to help customers as needed. So on the one hand, great, you’re providing that extra kind of human touch, but ideally you wouldn’t need that. Ideally you’d like to have something that’s so intuitive and so easy to figure out, and when you run into a hiccup, there’s a solution. Right there those people end up dealing with is just the complaints and frustrated customers who are, you know, kind of giving up on their, their expensive solution there.

So, yeah, my experience at NRF and let’s face it, NRF is Disney world for retail technology it’s every shiny object and bell and whistle that you can imagine that’s available right now in the marketplace is there, and it’s pretty amazing. It’s just, you know, it’s really easy to get a shiny object-itis and be taken by the next uh, uh, sparkling item. Um was remarkable to me about, about custom made solution, though, is it’s not that it’s not just this shiny object, it’s actually. I would just call it a very common-sense set of tools that help customers solve common-sense kinds of everyday problems. So I thought it was anything but a shiny object. I’m sorry if that offends anybody on your team, but I think it’s practical On the contrary, that was the intention.

Yeah, I, I was. It was so well executed that, um, when, uh, your CEO was first introducing me to the product, um, I think he wanted to to give me a full demo of how this works, but ultimately he didn’t need to. It was kind of self-evident this is what it is, this is what it does, and that, to me, was pretty remarkable.

Yaniv Zukerman 

Yeah, and I think one of the reasons for this is not only the technology, as I mentioned. Basically, Cust2Mate has been established by a group of people, visionary people, but people that are coming from the retail industry, retail technology, industry. The combined experience of the people in the executive team here, but even more than that, is hundreds of years of experience in retail, retail technology. So we really understand retail, we understand our. So we really understand retail, we understand our customers and we understand the customers of our customers, because all of us have been involved in either developing, servicing, delivering marketing solutions to that particular domain. So it’s not about the technology, it’s about a good solution that is intuitive, that makes sense. As you said, it needs to make sense, it needs to make sense operationally, it needs to make sense on the customer experience front and it needs to make sense also financially.

Mike Giambattista 

Eventually, uh, if you’re able to talk about some of the things that Cust2Mate is working on right now for the next iteration of the product, because you mentioned this, I think this is a version 3.0. Um, I’m not familiar with with prior versions of this, but, um, you know, how do you make something like this better? Is it just a matter of incremental tweaks and improvements, or is there anything significant coming down the pike?

Yaniv Zuckerman 

So there are a few avenues that we are following in order to improve our offering. First and foremost is things that are operational and has to do with scale and our ability to move to a much more significant scale. It has to do a lot with our ability to move to much more significant scale. It has to do a lot with cost reduction, which is a big effort because, as I said, eventually it needs to make sense, also financially, to our customers and cost reduction will help us help them achieve this. And it’s interesting you’ve mentioned our competitors beforehand. If it’s expensive, eventually it won’t become a mainstream solution. So they would have five, ten carts per store at most. But in order to make it significant, a real game changer, you need to have a significant amount of carts at the store, completely agree. Significant amount of cards at the store Completely agree. At least, I think the sweet spot would be about 30, 40% of the cards or 30 or 40% of the transactions at the store that would go through the smart cards. So you need to reduce costs. This is one avenue. The other avenue has to do with the addition of many other value-added services. That makes sense.

Let’s talk about more content, about the different products. Let’s talk about navigation within the store. We can talk about product recommendations. Basically, it’s very simple. We just need to look at most of the services that people are used to when they do their online shopping and just bring it to the physical store, to our cart. So this is the roadmap for us.

Basically, we’re trying to copycat, if you will, the same experience into our carts and add on top of that everything that is particular to the fact that you are physically there. So location-based services, so offers whether it’s advertisements or promotions or coupons that are either location-based or based on the actual activity that you do in real time, right now at the store and makes much more sense because they bring actual value at the right time at the right place. That’s another avenue, and the third avenue is, of course, using the accumulated data to further improve the operations of our customers, of our retailers and their partners, whether they would be advertisers or companies that provide coupons or other types of services, in order to ever improve, optimize the way they offer products, the way they merchandise them, where they put them at the stores. I’ll just give you one example we can track which products are being looked after without finding the product application. If so many people are looking for the same product, it means that they can’t find it, so maybe you can reconsider where to put it at the store.

Mike Giambattista 

I’m not saying this is the only parameter, but just one simple example saying this is the only, the only parameter, but that’s just one simple example. The um, the ancillary revenue opportunities seem significant as well, and and what I’m thinking of is and I think you just alluded to it, the you know being able to present messaging sponsored messaging, if you will, uh to customers based on their location within the store, based on their habits as you know them, because I believe that Cust2Mate’s cart solution understands who the customer is. There’s some sort of tie-in with the loyalty program.

Yaniv Zukerman 

Through our integration to the point of sale and loyalty uh systems of our retailers. We do not manage their cost, it’s their customers, it’s their data. But we do integrate in order to facilitate both all the loyalty benefits and of course we need to integrate with the point of sale system.

Mike Giambattista 

So, via this, yes, of course, so that, so that data is available to users of Cust2Mate to deploy it either for couponing, messaging, promotions, directional guidance, whatever happens to be, as well as the data that’s derived from that. So it seems to me like there’s an awful lot of opportunity for partnerships. I can imagine, um, you know, the CPG world would be vitally interested in this product. Um, I mean, case in point, and I’m sure you know this the retail media networks have exploded. There’s just gobs and gobs of money being moved from other, more traditional digital channels into retail media right now.

It’s not expected to slow down and it seems like custom mate has just opened up a new channel within that ecosystem that could be really, really interesting, depending on how connected the cart really is and you know how well it could say serve ads from a network if that was something you wanted to. But it seems to be wide open there, as long as we’re blue-skying the possibilities. What other things are on the drawing board for ancillary uses?

Yaniv Zukerman 

So, as you mentioned, retail media network and, by the way, if you’re free, I’m hiring people for our business development team you just nailed it and said it perfectly. So this is really it could be a game changer to how you do media and how do you do advertisements personalized advertisements at the physical store, because we know what are the existing solutions at the physical stores. You know digital screens, which it’s fine, but it’s not personal, it’s not context driven. It’s very difficult to measure the impact of those campaigns and, again, we provide, as you perfectly said, it’s another channel, it’s another channel for the retail, it’s very similar to the e-commerce channel, but it’s being operated at the physical store, but it’s it’s it’s an additional channel and I think that could be a real game changer, usher in retail media networks in a significant way, in a very effective way, into physical stores.

We can provide triggers and specific data in real time about what’s going on within each and every shopper journey using our carts. Shopper journey using our carts, logging in, paying. Every product added to our carts is being identified and that could trigger something. The location of the cart of the store could trigger a location-based, relevant ad. Think about private labels. Retailers can promote their own labels by using this, presenting the logic If you scan a CPG brand, maybe you can try our own private label substitute and vice versa. So, working with retail media platforms and networks, this is a natural evolution. This is something we are working on and I think that could bring tremendous value both to, as you said, to the CPG brands gaining the satisfactions of the customers, because now they’re not being spammed, they’re getting actually value-adding offers. So larger shopping baskets, but also additional revenue streams coming from the advertisers, which are very profitable.

Mike Giambattista 

What strikes me most about the possibilities here is how uniquely relevant the messaging could be. And again, I haven’t seen this function on Cust2Mate’s product actively, but I can imagine that if once plugged in operational, into the right retail media networks, that you could be serving up things that are I would just call hyper relevant, because it’s no longer I mean you. You’ve literally dialed it back to, uh, the most immediate uh that you could derive from a shopping experience, and those could all be triggers for some sort of messaging. So I think it’s wild Really looking forward to seeing if that’s live now. I’d love to see a demo. If it’s not live, I want to be around when it becomes live.

Yaniv Zukerman 

Some aspects of this are already live. We have already been using this with some of our customers with our own platform, helping them to manage their own campaigns of advertisements and offers of promotions and discounts, and they have been selling this already those ad real estate to their CPG partners and gaining additional income sources due to that. But I think eventually this is something that in order to really maximize the potential there, we’ll need kind of a triangular partnership between, of course, our capabilities, our retail customers and their retail media network operators and technology providers. That would really nail it and maximize the overall potential there.

Mike Giambattista 

Yeah, again, I’ll just say, as it becomes real, I want to put my foot in the door there and at least observe what’s going on, because I think it’s the potentials just wild. Uh, again, anecdotally, I was, uh, a colleague of mine. Uh, lives and breathes retail media. This is his passion, and you know what he lives for. Um, but uh, we were in a conversation recently and he was telling me about how so much of CPG advertising and marketing spend was based on traditional co-op kinds of arrangements. You know, sell this much, we’ll give you this much. That kind of a thing, that equation with all of its nuances. You know, sell this much, we’ll give you this much. That kind of a thing, that equation with all of its nuances. But that as soon as retail media networks started to become a thing, as soon as CPGs started to recognize the real potential there, that those co-op arrangements went out the window so fast and they’d been entrenched you know, think about it for decades.

This is just the way it worked for the longest time and suddenly you know there’s a whole new set of rules to play by, because there’s all new potential at hand.

Mike Giambattista 

So you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation that one of the great benefits to CustomMate’s technology is its ability to help retailers manage shrinkage. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Yaniv Zukerman 

Sure. So, as I mentioned, this is shrinkage. Retail shrinkage right now is at all times high in the United States, but elsewhere as well, and there are a lot of existing technologies and solutions being used by retailers. Most of them are, let’s say, ineffective.

Mike Giambattista 

Yeah, you’re being kind, but yes, let’s say ineffective.

Yaniv Zukerman 

Yeah, let’s say ineffective. I wouldn’t use any harsher words Locking up stuff. Listen, if you want to sell stuff, you can’t put it behind a glass lock or a cage, or sell a laminate board instead of your fancy gadget, or put it behind a self-service counter. It’s not working. And if it’s working, you might protect the products, but you lose the customer, patience and time and eventually the sale and in most cases, you don’t even protect the products. Eventually, the sale and in most cases, you don’t even protect the products.

Other technological solutions can do a better job to identify patterns and identify them, but a lot of them, at least, are perceived as intrusive, has a lot of privacy issues because eventually you monitor the customers and customers don’t like to be monitored. So if I’m a customer visiting a store and I see everything is locked up and I’m being covered by dozens of cameras, so why should I get into your store? I would order online. If I’m ordering online, it’s not necessarily would be with your online. It could be with your competitors’ online e-commerce site. So they’re in the cusp of losing significant market share, and only by this fact. So we understand that, in order to face this, it can’t come at the expense of customer experience. So, first, customer experience is the key and while maximizing customer experience, we need to make sure that as much as possible we mitigate shrinkage. And first and foremost, we need to mitigate unintentional errors, which are a big chunk of shrinkage eventually. A big chunk of shrinkage eventually other autonomous types of checkouts is just unintentional mistakes of you missed, you forgot to scan something, you forgot to put it back. Those errors accumulate to a lot of dollars eventually. So if you do it along the way, when you do your shopping with the cart and the cart makes sure that everything that you scan is being put into the cart and the right product is being put into the cart, and eventually you pay for everything that you’ve been putting into the cart. So you’re not. We can’t help them eliminate the problem altogether, but we can really mitigate it and minimize it, certainly taking away the unintentional errors and also deter intentional errors from people who are trying to steal.

We are doing this by using different types of technologies, fusing different types of technologies. That has to do with the identification of the products and validation of the products that are being scanned and put into the cart. First, barcode scanner that you scan each product and then you place it in the cart. A security scale that is being mounted at the bottom of the cart and make sure that the weight is right. It corresponds to the product that you’ve just placed inside A camera with a computer vision and analytics software that can scan and identify the products, especially the ones that are more prone to being stolen.

An RFID reader that can read products that are being guarded, protected with RFID tags and this is something that, over time, I believe would be much more prevalent. And, last and last list, an overall software that runs analytics on the activities that are are going on throughout the journey and identifies and flags anomalies, suspicious activities that can be predefined or being understood over time, and that is being getting the employee or the guy that is responsible for this at the store is getting those flags, is getting notifications and he can go to the cart and see what’s going on and mitigate and resolve the issue. So this is our approach and it’s seamless. Again, it’s part of the shopping journey and we are sensing the products, we’re sensing the activities, we’re not sensing the shoppers.

Mike Giambattista 

Aidan McCullen it’s a brilliant solution. Are you at liberty to say where you are currently being deployed in the United States?

Yaniv Zukerman 

So currently we are deployed in the United States in an East Coast nice retail chain called Morton Williams. They have been one of our dearest customers, one of our earliest and dearest customers there, about doing pilots with some other customers, retail chains different sizes, both in the United States, in Mexico, in other countries in the Americas, currently more specifically in Central America and Latin America. We can’t really disclose at this point names, but we have a very nice and robust pipeline.

Mike Giambattista 

I love hearing it. Not only in America by the way, We’ll check back in in a future conversation to talk about the retail media network component of this, to talk about your marketplace successes and then also to talk about what version 4.0 of the smart cart was going to look like.

A link to the podcast: https://thecustomer.net/shopping-reinvented-the-data-driven-smart-cart-revolution-is-here/

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Cust2Mate has introduced an innovative supermarket trolley to transform in-person grocery shopping. While many smart cart teams are created by technologists for retailers, Cust2Mate has focused on solving the industry’s main pain points whilst alleviating the friction and frustrations of shoppers with the assistance of technology.

With thousands of carts deployed across four continents, the Cust2Mate 3.0 has a multifaceted solution that has simplified the checkout process by allowing shoppers to self-scan products and make in-cart payments. This facilitates a convenient, frictionless, ‘pick and go’ experience and eliminates the traditional checkout line or self-checkout issues.

The most recent upgrade to the Cust2Mate design includes an all-in-one detachable panel, allowing the company to use existing shopping trollies, lowering the installation and maintenance costs whilst minimizing space needed for charging and storage. CEO of Cust2Mate, Guy Mordoch, said the requirements to run the Smart Cart system were minimal.

“The goal is to prioritize ease of operation, flexibility, and low cost for the retailer, so Cust2Mate’s smart carts work with the infrastructure that a typical supermarket would already have. This includes WiFi and a power source to charge the carts,” said Mordoch.

Cust2Mate 3.0 carts are powered through a detachable control panel, which are charged in dedicated ports, located at the entrance and exit of the store. When fully charged, the panels have approximately eight hours of life, but are charged in between shopping journeys to minimize energy consumption and charging time while increasing usability.

Security was a key focus during the design phase of the Cust2Mate 3.0. With five different layers of security, the device includes AI computer-vision cameras, advanced security scales, RFID, behavior anomaly detection, and a barcode scanner that can capture and analyze physical and visual data. This technology will make the Cust2Mate 3.0 aware of any item that has been removed from the trolley. It will also ensure that the item scanned and paid for is the same item being taken home by the consumer and alert the retailer if it’s not.

Mordoch said that the Cust2Mate 3.0 was designed with the consumer in mind.

“The smart cart is highly interactive, leveraging behavioral data and on-cart touch screens to deliver personalized, context-driven, real-time product recommendations, promotions, and advertisements.”

Mordoch added that the technology can go beyond convenience by accommodating special diets and allergies, flagging items that have undesirable ingredients while also presenting relevant coupons.

“These features not only contribute to a more cost-effective shopping trip, but also add elements of personalization, safety, and reward for users.”

Supermarkets can monitor each Cust2Mate cart through a seamless, 360-degree management system. This system leverages the panel’s WiFi connectivity to oversee a store’s fleet of smart carts, enabling retailers to promptly receive notifications, resolve service issues, and obtain data that analyses customer activity, behaviors, and transactions.

Additionally, retailers equipped with robust data capabilities can extract valuable operational and commercial insights, thereby enhancing the store’s overall performance.

Cust2Mate shopping trollies are a multifaceted solution that elevates the shopping experience for consumers and empowers retailers. They also reduce costs and shrinkage through automation, personalized promotions, product recommendations, and a seamless checkout process. Cust2Mate’s products have been implemented by major retailers in countries such as the USA, Turkey, France, Belgium, and Australia.

Article from: https://supermarketnews.co.nz/global/international-news/cust2mate-transform-trolley-technology/

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Across continents, more retailers are adopting smart carts to lower their labor costs without driving up shrink.

Instacart and Associated Wholesale Growers (AWG) shared Monday (March 25) that they have expanded their partnership to offer more direct access to the former’s eCommerce and same-day delivery solutions across the latter’s member retailers. The offerings include Instacart’s artificial intelligence-powered Caper Cart self-checkout carts, bringing the collaboration to 2,300 more AWG member retailer locations.

Meanwhile, A2Z Smart Technologies Corp. announced Friday (March 22) the first deployment of its Cust2Mate 3.0 smart carts, scheduled to go live in April in Israel’s Yochananof supermarket chain, with France’s Monoprix and the United States’ Morton Williams to follow.

Cust2Mate CEO Guy Mordoch told PYMNTS last year that the company sees a 30% increase in average basket size when shoppers use smart carts over regular shopping carts.

As retailers look to unify their digital and brick-and-mortar presences, smart carts can help bridge the gap. For instance, these carts can gather data on customer behavior, such as purchasing patterns, popular products and peak shopping times, much as eCommerce channels can track engagement. Retailers can analyze this data to gain insights into customer preferences and optimize their merchandising strategies, pricing and inventory management.

Moreover, by understanding individual shopping habits and preferences, retailers can deliver targeted marketing campaigns and personalized promotions to customers across digital and physical channels. This tailored approach can increase customer engagement, loyalty and sales.

Plus, smart carts streamline the shopping process by enabling customers to scan items as they shop, reducing the need for traditional checkout counters while mitigating some of the risks posed by other methods of self-checkout. Specifically, smart carts equipped with sensors and security features can help retailers combat theft and shrinkage while still reaping the operational benefits of self-checkout.

According to Caper, its cart has “anti-theft” features, equipped with “tools to help prevent shrink.” Plus, Cust2Mate claims to work against “the growing shrinkage epidemic” with features such as “computer vision, RFID and AI anomaly behavior detection” in addition to the standard-issue scanning and weight sensor capabilities.

These moves to expand smart cart adoption come as retailers are forced to pivot away from traditional self-checkout kiosks amid widespread losses.

Still, retailers see a strong need for self-checkout solutions. PYMNTS Intelligence research from 2022 found that 60% of U.S. retailers saw self-service kiosks as being key to shopper loyalty, and 40% said the same about the ability to scan products and pay without standing in line.

Many consumers also seek out these kinds of in-store digital technologies, such that these kinds of digital upgrades can improve their shopping experience. PYMNTS Intelligence’s study “2024 Global Digital Shopping Index: The Rise of the Click-and-Mortar™ Shopper and What It Means for Merchants” found that 25% of consumers are digitally assisted in-store shoppers, using technology to improve their brick-and-mortar experiences.

Article from: https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2024/retailers-expand-smart-cart-adoption-boost-self-checkout-lower-theft/

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Tomorrow’s tech comprises smart devices to aid consumers’ shopping excursions, the further proliferation of in-store and intra-distributor/warehouse AI, and the further evolution of self-checkout. Here’s a glimpse of what some retail experts foresee for tomorrow’s retail.

Self-Checkout – Down But Far From Out

The proliferation, perceived death, and media blowback of self-checkout has been well documented by The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Food Institute. 

“Self-checkout is a part of the technology journey consumers and retailers are on, but it’s not the destination,” said Andy Keenan, executive vice president and general manager at Advantage Solutions, to TFI in the article linked above, noting that as the technology advances, how grocers and retailers implement it will depend upon how consumers respond, and despite the challenges it presents, the number of self-checkout lanes has increased by 10% in the last five years.

Some see a way forward; others see technology leapfrogging the lane entirely. It’s a classic case of the Schrodinger’s Cat paradox – until the future tech is definitive, self-checkout will both thrive and struggle in equal measure; it all depends who you ask.

“Self-checkout exploded in the pandemic, but with the increase of retail theft, retailers are recognizing that the costs of shrink associated with fewer associates outweighs the value of reducing labor costs,” Gottlieb noted. “In the future, retailers will begin to move away from self-checkout and shift their focus towards loss prevention.”

Another way of thinking about it is that the notion of self-checkout may move from the retail floor kiosk directly to the retail consumer’s pocket by way of the smartphone. Sarah Jarvis is Propositions Director at Eagle Eye, a retail personalization and development company, who sees shopping becoming more of a “phone out” activity as technology accelerates toward a truly seamless omnichannel experience.

“We envision that smartphones will become customer companions that augment the in-store experience,” she told TFI. “Retailers will develop intuitive apps that will act as personal shopping assistants, supporting customers throughout their journeys pre-, during, and post-transaction.”

For many big-box or warehouse retailers, aspects of that reality already exist. Still, the notion of self-checkout may proliferate as brands make their apps more essential to a value-driven in-store experience.

“For example, app users inside Nike stores can scan a QR code to summon shoes – in their size – to try on,” she offered. “They can ‘shop the look’ using their smartphone’s camera or checkout instantly using integrated payment options within the app. Other retailers can adopt this approach and, in the process, augment the brand relationship and the in-store experience.”

Seen most often at sports stadiums and other large entertainment arenas, the further proliferation of “just walk out” technology will continue to offer consumers what they want – just faster and more conveniently than what they’re used to today, which is hard to imagine.

Whether or not tech-forward consumers employ every digital and seamless option available to them, retailers and grocers will still have to contend with the average consumer and their No. 1 tool as they have for decades – the shopping cart. But tomorrow’s shopping cart is much more than a box on wheels.

Smart Carts Enhance Shopping Lists & Nutrition

Guy Mordoch is CEO of Cust2Mate, a smart shopping cart solutions company. Smart carts offer a digital tablet on or near the handle in which customers can upload their shopping lists before even entering the store, and from solving the salesman’s problem of the most efficient route to offering digital and in-store coupons that match a customer’s purchase history and dietary/nutrition needs, tomorrow’s cart will offer further solutions for value, convenience, and discovery.

Cust2Mate has a large commercial deployment in Israel with Yochananof, one of its largest grocery chains. Mordoch provided the following data from their deployment there:

• Average basket size up to 75% larger than regular carts & self-checkout
• 75% returning shoppers
• 43 average items per cart
• Up to four cashier lines removed

Yochananof deputy CEO Elad Harazi said, “Yochananof shoppers express great satisfaction with the shopping experience carried out using the Cust2Mate smart cart. As a chain that is always at the forefront of advanced technology in the field of retail, we are happy to continue and purchase more carts and increase the layout in more branches.”

“Smart carts serve as a bridge between the physical store and the digital world, providing an omnichannel approach that creates a holistic understanding of shoppers for brick-and-mortar grocers,” Mordoch offered. “Smart carts present physical retailers with the opportunity to replace traditional self-checkout methods … and actually digitize the shopping journey.”

Our smart cart offers shoppers a completely frictionless experience and improves their engagement and satisfaction,” he concluded. “We have seen that enabling on-cart payments (a ‘pick and go’ functionality allowing shoppers to pay using digital wallets, credit cards, PayPal, and even cryptocurrencies) streamlines the checkout process, reducing time spent on waiting on lines and effectively increasing the shopping time.”

Cust2Mate has also found success with French retail giant Carrefour. Carrefour piloted the carts in June 2023 and by December announced it would deploy over 2,400 carts throughout the country, the largest implementation to date of the smart cart technology.

AI for Operations and Supply Chain

As AI advances, operators will have to advance their hardware (and hardware budgets) along with it. And that’s just on the product end – there’s a whole other level of possibilities once spatial computing comes to the forefront of conventional retail.

“For AI to really work for the folks on the retail floor, it needs to get the physical world around it. That’s where spatial computing shines,” said Nils Pihl, CEO of Auki Labs, to TFI. “It’s not just about slapping a virtual TV screen in the air – retailers can use it to anchor all sorts of useful things in their space, like tasks and info, right where their staff need it.”

Pihl said solving this dilemma could slash training costs by billions. He knows the consumer side is flashy, “but whoever cracks spatial computing in retail – bringing AI right to the shop floor – that’s the one who may come out on top.”

Pihl points out that without spatial computing, AI’s advantages are probably skewed toward e-commerce, putting conventional brick-and-mortar stores at a significant disadvantage. Pihl said it may seem like a dire situation for brick-and-mortar stores, but the advent of spatial computing in the future will change the game once more: “Imagine a computer that truly understands its physical surroundings. This is more than just tech jargon; it’s the key for AI to effectively join the retail frontlines, revolutionizing how we manage and experience physical stores,” allowing real-world spaces to harness AI as effectively (and remain competitive with) e-commerce markets, “an essential factor in the ongoing evolution of the retail industry.”

Much is also poised to change on the supply side as well.

“In the future, AI will play a significant role in creating a leaner supply chain that doesn’t fail consumers,” said David Gottlieb, CRO at Trax Retail, to TFI. “Brands and retailers will be able to make more-exact estimates of how many products to order – which will ultimately reduce costs and ease supply chain issues.”

Gottlieb added that while many global supply chain bottlenecks have eased since the peak of the pandemic, out-of-stock issues persist from Target to Costco, Sam’s Club to Hy-Vee, and more. When items aren’t available in the e-commerce world, consumers are much more likely to spend their money elsewhere. 

To further understand how inventory and supply chain will change, Jarvis said the end of data silos must be achieved “to create a holistic understanding of each shopper, their interactions, and the stream of information being shared with them.

“We predict that barriers between sales and marketing channels will continue to blur and dissolve, allowing for a more consistent flow of data to deliver more detailed and accurate customer insights,” she added. “This approach to channel-merging and silo-ending translates to improved consumer experiences, with insights being leveraged to provide precise predictive recommendations and dynamic content customization that boost engagement.”

Jarvis noted that achieving personalization at scale and delivering individualized customer experiences at every phase of the buying journey can only happen if the most basic needs of the consumer are met – is the product in stock, and can it be delivered as promised in as brief, inexpensive, and efficient time frame as possible?

AI will help achieve that. What else it will help manufacturers, managers, and operators do is just beginning to be understood.

Article from: https://foodinstitute.com/focus/the-future-of-retail-part-2-tomorrows-tech/

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