Walmart’s Cash-and-Carry store operation Sam’s Club will open a self-scanning-only store in Grapevine, Texas next week – Sam’s Club president and CEO Chris Nicholas announced at the Groceryshop conference in Las Vegas on Monday. The store will not be equipped with regular checkout counters. Customers will have to pay using the Scan&Go smartphone app. The retailer will use the location to test new features and emerging technology.
Sam’s Club’s Scan&Go technology was developed in-house. Customers scan the barcode on each item and pay using an app developed by the membership retailer. The store will be around 14.000 square meters (151,000 square feet), according to Retail Dive. AI and computer vision at the exit area will confirm that customers have paid for all the items in their shopping carts. A camera will be mounted on a gate above the customer to identify the products in the trolleys. The technology captures images of the basket and transmits them to an employee’s handheld device, as reported by The Retail Optimiser.
Speaking at Groceryshop, Sam‘s‘ Club CEO said, according to Retail Dive: “We got really excited about some of the problems that members are asking us to solve, and right at the heart of that was, ‘Please take friction out of my life.’” The retailer believes that its customers are no longer primarily interested in buying large amounts of goods. “Shoppers are increasingly interested in picking up a few items at a time”, says Nicholas.
Freed space used for brining online in store
Nicholas stated at the conference in Las Vegas that around 30 per cent of Sam’s Club customers use Scan&Go regularly. The membership retailer doesn’t only want to remove friction at the checkout but it also aims to add value to every member who’s using the app. Sam’s Club wants to use the extra space at the store, which would normally be occupied by regular manned checkouts, to display products that are only available online. Shoppers can then scan QR codes and go straight to the items in the app.
In August of this year, the retailer also began displaying ads from consumer goods industry in its Scan&Go app, as reported by The Retail Optimiser. In doing so, the US retail company opened up new opportunities for advertisers to reach their customers in physical stores at the point in the customer journey when they ultimately decide to purchase products.
