The State of Retail: It’s Time for Change

According to Harvard Business School, U.S. consumers waste an average of 118 hours per year waiting in line, with a large chunk of those hours spent standing in queues at stores. In fact, it was his refusal to stand in line to buy milk, that got our CEO, Krishna Motukuri, thinking about how to bring innovation to brick and mortar stores.

The retail industry has been long due for an overhaul with a need for automation that makes shopping easier, and more enjoyable for consumers. While this transition is already visible with more self-checkout lanes and in-store apps offering scan-and-go options in stores, at Zippin, we believe these solutions not only hurt customer satisfaction—but also negatively impact store sales, by making shoppers do more of the work.

No surprise, we believe the future is automated and checkout-free: look at what Amazon Go, our own company, Zippin, and other startups in this space are up to.

AI Is Unlocking The Future

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, along with advances in different sensors, cameras and edge computing, continue to bring down the cost of deployment, while increasing the robustness of these systems: systems that are growing to handle to a multitude of types and classes of products.

It’s our belief that checkout-free solutions will proliferate widely at convenience stores in busy urban locations, express sections of large stores,  airports, stadiums, and commercial buildings, over the next five years. Large format stores will follow suit in the next decade.

Checkout-free stores offer customers convenience, better experience, and greater accessibility, while significantly saving costs for retailers. And what’s more, these systems will bring retailers significantly improved insights about their inventory.

Learn more about our views on checkout-free retail, and our proprietary technology approach by downloading our new white paper here.