Waitrose Smart Cart Experiment | Fast Five Shorts
Sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso. Waitrose pilots AI-powered smart trolleys in Bracknell, becoming the first UK supermarket to test the technology. Chris and Anne remain skeptical about customer adoption hurdles and question why retailers are first in the water on unproven smart cart solutions.
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Transcript
Waitrose unveiled AI Smart Trolleys over in the UK According to the Daily Mail, Waitrose has brought in innovative smart trolleys powered by artificial intelligence which keep track of products as shoppers pick them off the shelves.
Speaker A:The small scale trial at the upmarket chain store in the Berkshire town of Brecknell is believed to shout out to Brecknell.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Is believed to be the first time a UK supermarket has has used so called smart carts.
Speaker A:The Shopee system is powered by handlebar type devices made by Israeli software firm Shopic, which customers can pick up from a charging bank.
Speaker A:At the entrance, a shopper can release one of the futuristic looking units after scanning their My Weight Rose loyalty card and then clip it into a regular trolley to begin the shop.
Speaker A:Customers then scan the barcodes on their items similar to how they would with a self scan handset now offered by some retailers, before placing their items in the trolley.
Speaker A:Once the item is in the trolley, back facing cameras verify the product and shoppers can pay on the device at the end rather than having to wait in line at checkout.
Speaker A:The device also displays the cost for each item as it goes in and gives a running total on the large touch screen as shoppers make their way around the store.
Speaker A:Chris, it's been a little while since we've discussed smart carts on the podcast.
Speaker A:Does this news out of Waitrose change your opinion on them at all?
Speaker B:Not really.
Speaker B:In fact it probably sours me on them a little bit.
Speaker B:I was kind of, you know, go, I was kind of like getting more on the acclamation curve of the smart cart and then now we're heading into grocery shop too.
Speaker B:So who knows where this is going to play because you know it's going to be a topic of conversation there.
Speaker B:But you know, as I as I read this headline and I still wouldn't touch a smart cart with a 10 foot pole and it goes back to a little bit about what we talked about in the last headline and with Julian as well, because one, the infrastructure is expensive and you don't really know what substrate is going to win out in the long run.
Speaker B:For example, the use cases we've always heard about are what you shared, right?
Speaker B:One, so that you can serve up retail media to the shopper while he or she shops.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:That's one of them.
Speaker B:And then secondly, the other use case we hear a lot about is that customers like to see their budget in real time.
Speaker B:Okay, yeah, great.
Speaker B:But do you need the full cart from Instacart to do that?
Speaker B:The full caper cart?
Speaker B:No, you can do those things with something like this.
Speaker B:But then with this, you also have the issue of acclimating the customers to clicking these things on the cart, going up, scanning them, getting them, which is the same with the scan and go units you see in Europe, too.
Speaker B:So, you know, maybe it'll play over there, I don't know.
Speaker B:But it just feels like it's an awfully big bet and big spend and a customer hurdle for something that may not even have that big of a payoff at the end of the day.
Speaker B:So, to me, your money could be better spent in helping your staff actually get work done as opposed to throwing what will ultimately become another task on their plates, which is teaching shoppers how to use these cards.
Speaker B:I'd be deploying this.
Speaker B:I'd be spending my money on things that are proven that help my store employees without requiring any customer interaction at this point, that's where I'd be spending my money.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker A:And shout out to Toby Picard, who actually, you know, was the one that uncovered that this was all happening.
Speaker A:A friend of the show, too.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:It's really hard because we haven't seen these live at the Waitrose, but I do.
Speaker A:I love the idea of the efficiency of these that, you know, you don't have to invest 5 to $10,000 per smart cart like you do with a caper cart.
Speaker A:However, I still think there's too much friction for the customer.
Speaker A:Chris, I agree with you there.
Speaker A:I. I don't understand why, as a retailer, you wouldn't start to, like, go the way of what, like, Sam's Club is doing, where you.
Speaker A:You have the individual.
Speaker A:Just like you already have your app up with your loyalty card on it.
Speaker A:Why aren't you testing scan and go in that way?
Speaker A:Like, you still have to scan each barcode of each product.
Speaker A:It just.
Speaker A:It seems like it'd be simpler without having to get the cart involved.
Speaker B:Care about your portrait that way?
Speaker A:I guess.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, I don't know.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:I think there's other, smarter ways to be doing this and other places that I'd be investing in my store.
Speaker A:To your point, you know, especially the retail media angle.
Speaker A:I don't know how you even start to get without connecting to something like an Instacart.
Speaker A:Because I think that's where the value of the Instacart Capercart comes in is like, you are connecting to a broader store ecosystem.
Speaker A:You're not just connecting to.
Speaker A:It's not just about the cart.
Speaker A:And in this case, I. I still think it's too difficult and there's going to be too many moving pieces here for Waitrose to really see the value of doing something like this in store.
Speaker A:So I, I think this is going to be a short lived pilot for, for Waitrose but a good idea in theory.
Speaker A:But yeah, I don't think this execution is right.
Speaker B:You know the other, the other thing I think about too is like why, why is anyone the first one in the water on these things?
Speaker B:You know, because I go back to like our conversation with Dave Stack and if Dave Stack of schnooks, for those that maybe aren't familiar with him, longtime friend of the show, had him on a lot.
Speaker B:I mean he would tell you hands down he, he would, he would kill somebody if they took the robot out of the store.
Speaker B:You know the smart cards like a nice to have to him.
Speaker B:It's something they're experimenting with but like you know, and like that's how he sees it.
Speaker B:Like there's so many more useful solutions that should be invested in, you know, over this and I don't understand why anyone would be first on this.
Speaker A:Well, and they're using Schnooks is using the cape cart which again is like there's other value to that.
Speaker A:It's playing into the intelligence, the store intelligence, not just an independent unit that's serving one purpose which is to overall help a checkout.
Speaker A:Yes, exactly.
Speaker A:So yeah, I, I don't know.
Speaker A:I, I hope that we get to see this at grocery shop and kind of get to talk to the company just to get their perspective for a stand on how, how this and other pilots are going too because that all that also makes the difference and helps us think of things that maybe we're not concerned so.
