Aldi Süd is testing a digital shopping trolley from Caper, which was aquired by quick service provider Instacart in 2021, at its Austrian country unit Hofer. In a store in Sattledt, close to Hofer’s headquarters, a pilot with 15 Caper shopping trolleys is running until the end of the year, where customers can not only scan their goods themselves, but also weigh them to calculate their price. To do this, the product must first be selected on the screen and then weighed in the shopping trolley. Users of the system in Sattledt can pay at special terminals.
The Caper system uses vision recognition technology to check whether the customer has actually scanned the goods they have placed into the shopping trolley. While the system is promoted in North America as being able to display personalised offers that match the current purchase and synchronise shopping lists after the customer has logged in, Aldi Süd is explicitly interested in being able to offer convenient shopping without the customer having to log in anywhere.
Caper’s digital shopping trolley has so far mainly been used in North America. The most important users are Kroger in the USA and the largest Canadian retailer, Sobeys. The Retail Optimiser reported. In the USA, Caper has also won Wakefern, Snucks and Shoprite (US) as customers.
Second attempt by Aldi Süd
In October 2021, grocery delivery service Instacart acquired Caper AI, adding its first retail technology product to its portfolio. Instacart hopes that Caper technology will also benefit its retail partners when picking goods in stores for home delivery.
The pilot at Hofer is Aldi Süd’s second test with digital shopping trolleys. In Australia and briefly in a store near the headquarters in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, the discounter tested the system from Israeli provider Shopic, which turns conventional shopping trolleys into smart carts by plugging in a vision recognition unit. The Retail Optimiser reported.
Hofer also wants to introduce self-checkouts
Aldi Süd’s Hofer has also announced plans to introduce self-checkouts. Initially, 50 stores are to be equipped in 2025 and 200 of its 540 Austrian stores in the long term. So far, there are very few self-checkouts in the entire Austrian market. “Everyone is struggling to get staff,” Hofer CEO Horst Leitner told the Austrian press agency APA, explaining the move towards self-service around the checkout.
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