Colruyt’s Smart Cart: The Future of Convenient Shopping and Checkout

2024-03-13 17:34:00

This is a real innovation that Colruyt is testing internally in its Halle store. The Smart Cart, or intelligent shopping cart, makes it possible to carry out your shopping more quickly and easily. During their visit to the store, customers register the products they wish to purchase by scanning the barcode in the shopping cart. Thanks to intelligent sensors (including a camera) as well as artificial intelligence, the Smart Cart controls the correct registration as well as the weight of the products. These are displayed digitally on the tablet integrated into the shopping cart’s push bar. This tablet allows you to track purchases as well as the Xtra shopping list, which is automatically updated during the purchasing process. The reductions are also deducted immediately. It is also easy to put a product back on the shelf: the customer can indicate this on the shopping cart interface before putting the product back in place. The Smart Cart will also ask which product has been removed. Currently being tested by Hall store staff, it will then be evaluated before a second phase of testing is launched with customer participation later in 2024.

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”For products without barcodes, such as fruits and vegetables, we have developed a solution for the future: initially, the customer will be able to weigh their products on a scale provided for this purpose in the freshness area . A code on the scale will then allow the customer to add the weighed products to their shopping cart and to their purchase count. During the testing phase carried out with the help of employees, the fruit and vegetables will be placed on the side and weighed at the checkout,” says Jo Willemyns, COO Retail at Colruyt Group and Managing Director of Colruyt Best Prices. “Precautions have also been taken to avoid any misuse: thanks to intelligent sensors placed in the shopping cart, any error, anomaly or fraud will be detected. Payment is made automatically, notably by Payconiq, when the customer wishes to leave the store. In the future it will also be possible to pay with Xtra.”

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A real innovation which will allow customers to save time when making their purchases and checking out, but which nevertheless raises some concerns from the unions. “I am quite divided about this innovation,” explains Myriam Delmée, president of Setca. “We are never against an innovation, especially if it brings something extra to the worker. The job of cashier at Colruyt is the heaviest because they have to transfer tons of goods from one shopping cart to another at the checkout. This innovation is certainly a plus for them, in terms of ergonomics. But we must also realize that if nothing is done in terms of support for the training and reclassification of workers, the generalization of this system could have catastrophic repercussions on employment. Of course, Colruyt wants to be reassuring by arguing that it is having difficulty finding staff and that this will therefore have no impact on employment. But, even if Colruyt staff are multi-skilled and a cashier also does other tasks such as restocking, this risks having an impact on the employment volume.”

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