75% of Consumers Want an Autonomous Shopping Experience According to Shekel-Sponsored Retail Shopping Survey

Visit Booth 2220 at NAMA 2021 to experience the Automated Shop presented by Shekel Brainweigh Retail Innovation Division and Hitachi Vantara

With less than 3% of consumers having already shopped at an autonomous store, 75% of consumers said they are interested in shopping at a newly-introduced autonomous store. This is according to the Retail Shopping survey targeting primary household decision makers conducted over SurveyMonkey and sponsored by Shekel Brainweigh Retail Innovation Division. The goal of the survey was to gain an understanding of how consumers perceive autonomous stores and autonomous store technologies. Nearly 80% of survey respondents were between the ages of 18-60 years old and more than 50% were female.

Key findings of the survey include:

• Convenience and a frictionless experience was cited as the most important feature of an autonomous store by 33% of respondents with 25% saying variety and selection of goods was most important.
  
  
• Nearly 13% of respondents prefer a fully autonomous store while 70% prefer a hybrid store with autonomous and human assistance options.
  
  
• Lack of assistance (37%) and leaving the store without knowing the amount charged (19%) were cited as the top two concerns of autonomous stores by survey respondents.
  
  
• For nearly 65% of respondents, privacy was a heightened concern, and they prefer an anonymous/privacy-protected shopping experience.
  
  
• In terms of ideal providers for autonomous store solutions, 50% said the solution should be best-of-breed regardless of the provider and that credible retail solutions providers with innovative technology from the coolest startups are best.

Udi Wiesner, General Manager of Shekel Brainweigh Retail Innovation Division said, “The results of our Retail Shopping survey demonstrate the need for retailers to quickly adopt autonomous store technologies and solutions to meet the major desires of consumers. And knowing that for nearly 50% of respondents COVID-19 has not impacted their shopping habits, there is a massive opportunity for retailers to improve their autonomous shopping strategies to provide superior shopping experiences with more store availability and a greater variety of products, while also keeping their customers’ privacy.”

The Shekel Brainweigh Retail Innovation Division is capitalizing on the global demand for retail store automation to provide enhanced consumer shopping experiences and improve retailers’ efficiencies. Shekel has developed its game changing Product Aware Technology, which digitally transforms a retail shelf into a source of actionable insights. With its ability to identify a product by its weight, using IoT load sensors, embedded Smart Shelf software and cloud-based artificial intelligence algorithms, it provides ideal product recognition capabilities that enable store automation.

At NAMA 2021, Shekel Brainweigh Retail Innovation Division and Hitachi Vantara will showcase the Automated Shop in Booth 2220, which enables retailers, vendors and operators to offer their customers a frictionless shopping experience in secure micro markets with a wide offering of fresh and healthy food at a lower cost of operation. The technology behind the shop includes Shekel’s Product Aware smart shelves and Hitachi 3D LiDAR with shopper insights and analytics displayed on the Hitachi Visualization Suite. This live experience will allow visitors to go through the shop as if it were their own customer journey.

As part of the Automated Shop, the booth will also feature a hubz Smart Cooler, the world’s most advanced unattended retail Micro Market solution that allows retailers and vending operators to offer consumers fresh and healthy food selections in a 100% frictionless vending machine experience and a Smart Coffee Machine, courtesy of UST.

Source: Shekel Brainweigh media announcement