Technology changing the shopping experience
Technology is changing the shopping experience and many high-tech items were on display recently at the National Retail Federation's annual expo in New York.
A company called Radius AI showed off a new type of scanner for checkout at convenience stores. It has a series of cameras that can recognize multiple items instantly so clerks don't have to ring up each individual item and customers can pay quicker.
At the supermarket, you can skip the checkout line completely with a new smart shopping cart from Cust2Mate. The cart has a bar code reader allowing customers to scan products when putting them in the cart. There's also a built-in scale to weigh produce. Customers pay on the tablet and then walk right out the door. Cust2Mate is currently offering the technology in select stores worldwide.
For those who don't want to go to the grocery store, there is now an electric fleet of vehicles delivering groceries and other items without a driver in northern California and Texas.
The Nuro autonomous car has cargo areas and can deliver packages, groceries or take-out food. Walmart, FedEx and Uber Eats are among the companies using it. The car can find an address on its own. When it arrives outside a home the customer enters a code on a keypad and one of the doors opens allowing the customer to grab their items. Right now, the vehicles can travel up to 25 miles per hour, but Nuro is developing a larger vehicle that can go up to 45 miles per hour.
Technology is also giving mannequins a 21st century makeover. At the show, Verizon and the company Proto showed off life-size holograms of models wearing the latest fashions from Burberry. A special camera is used to record a 3D image and send it to Proto's Epic box. It is surprisingly realistic and almost looks like there is a person inside a glass box. Burberry also had a series of 3D handbags on display.
"As you can see, it does create a very life-like representation of actual products. So sometimes even when products are first launched, they may not actually be delivered to the store yet, but it allows you to debut and showcase items to your consumers as soon as they are released," says Jason Stevens from Verizon.
Burberry has one at its store in London, other retailers have used it for product launches. The technology can also beam a person live from just about anywhere in the world. NFL shops have used it to have football players interact with a crowd at a special event.