Smart Checkout Technologies Aiming to Revolutionise Traditional Stores

September 2020

Sustainability & Smart Cities

Nick Maynard

VP of Fintech Market Research

Smart checkout technologies provide much simpler user experiences by removing traditional checkouts; embracing a ‘just walk out’ approach. We predict that the value of transactions processed by smart checkout technologies, where the fixed checkout process is replaced by a frictionless model, will reach $387 billion in 2025, up from just $2 billion in 2020. The rapid growth will be driven by retailers seeking sustainable business models.

The retail market has been feeling major disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, with a major shift towards the greater use of eCommerce resulting from lockdown measures. This has led to a raft of store closures and job losses in the traditional retail market. However, this is not a new or unique challenge. The retail market has been experiencing difficulties for some time, due to strong competition from online retail and changing consumer behaviour. As such, retailers should already have digital transformation plans in place.

There are an increasing number of technologies available to retailers and service providers with the potential to enhance both their operations and the experience they can provide customers. One of these are smart checkouts, a catch-all phrase intended to cover all forms of checkout infrastructure that automate or remove elements of the payment process. This can cover a multitude of different elements and techniques such as totally checkout-less shopping, cashier-based automatic payment, and automatic item scanning and bagging.

Other retail technologies include beacons (first introduced by Apple in 2013), RFID (a tracking technology that involves small tags that emit distinct signals) and robotics (a new area of in-store technology with highly disruptive potential). Overall, the integration of AI in retail will allow for better personalisation and marketing, improved customer service and accurate demand forecasting. The use of AI by retailers, including smart checkout systems and chatbots, will therefore be critical in ensuring that retailers can deliver a compelling omnichannel experience to consumers.

For this reason, we believe that, in order to compete with eCommerce disruptors, traditional retailers must adopt AI rapidly to boost efficiency. Failing to do so will mean facing a highly commoditised retail market with an outmoded, uncompetitive business model.