Smart Shopping Carts: A Different Way to Shop
Background:
Shopping carts. This is not something on most people’s minds when going shopping. You just grab a cart to put stuff in it. Pretty simple. However, smart shopping carts is a relatively new ubicomp system that can change the way we shop. The idea with smart shopping carts is that there is no need to check out. The cart knows what items you put in and take out. The most recent approach at smart shopping carts comes from Amazon with their new invention, Dash Cart. The cart’s first launch was around the summer of 2020, debuting in Amazon’s new Los Angeles supermarket. Although Amazon is far from the first retailer to attempt to invent a smart shopping cart, so far it seems it has invented the most advanced. Nonetheless, not everyone seems to be on board with Amazon’s new invented tech as retail senior contributor Chris Walton from Forbes called it “silly” and “one of the worst ideas in the history of Amazon”. However, it seems critics are underrating Amazon’s new smart shopping cart that uses a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion to identify items customers put in the cart. Its main purpose is to make customer’s lives easier and with what is exhibited, it seems to do just about that.
How It Works:
Amazon’s smart shopping cart, Dash Cart, is very simple to use. The process starts off by customers grabbing a cart and signing in with the QR code that will be linked on their Amazon app. Customers can then place up to two bags in the Dash Cart. After that users can start shopping and every time a user places an item in the cart it will beep and light up green. If the light turns orange, then the user should remove the item and try again. For items that do not have a barcode, the customer will be able to manually input the number that is listed on the product directly on the touchscreen of the Dash Cart. Lastly, once customers are done shopping, they can just skip the checkout line and roll through the Dash Cart lane to return the cart. At that point, customers should have already gotten an email of the receipt.
Advantages:
From what is advertised, Amazon’s Dash Cart will allow for much faster and convenient shopping. A quick trip to the grocery store does not have to be halted with having to wait in line to actually pay for everything. It can be as simple as grabbing a cart, putting your stuff in it, and walking out. Customers will be billed once they walk through the Dash Cart lane as sensors automatically identify the cart, and their payment is processed using the credit card on their Amazon account. Not only that, but the Amazon Dash Cart has a touchscreen that allows customers to access Alexa shopping lists and has a scanner for coupons. Also, while customers are shopping, they can view the subtotal of all the items they have in their cart, directly on the Dash Cart’s touchscreen.
There is also a way to let the cart know if you need to throw a jacket or purse in the cart, so you don’t have to carry it around. So not only does Amazon’s Dash Cart bring cashier-less shopping, but it provides customers with other great amenities. Being able to track one’s shopping list directly from the cart, directly view the products and the subtotal of the items that are put in the cart, and having the option like a coupon scanner at the tip of the customer are all desirable features that can make one’s experience of grocery shopping just a little bit better.
Disadvantages:
One clear disadvantage to Amazon’s smart shopping cart is that the cart seems to be small. Even Amazon has it advertised as “Shopping for 1 or 2 bags of groceries? With Amazon Dash Cart, you can skip the checkout line and roll out when you’re done”. As you can see, these self-scanning carts seemed to be made for customers who are not planning on doing the month’s grocery shopping all in one trip. Even though the size of two grocery bags may be enough for the average customer, I think it is a big disadvantage that the carts only limit to that amount.
Other issues that these Dash Carts can present include it being a hassle for maintenance and repair as shopping carts usually get slammed into each other, rained on, snowed on, etc. Shopping carts are not something people tend to look over or handle with care. In this case, if something goes wrong with these shopping carts then it is definitely much more of a nuisance to fix than what can go wrong with a regular shopping cart.
Recommendations:
The first recommendation I have to improve these smart carts is to definitely have much more sizable carts. If these smart carts are going to scale, they need to be bigger than just for “small- to- medium- sized grocery trips.” Smart shopping carts should have the ability to replace regular size carts, and maybe even bigger. Heck, the first store that the Dash Carts debuted in was Amazon’s new full-scale grocery store of about 30 to 40 thousand square feet! Even some analysts viewed this as why Amazon had to come up with another technology than just Amazon Go which allowed people to just walk in the store, grab what they want and walk out. They believed that with the size of Amazon’s new grocery store, tracking people and products gets much more computationally complex, and computer vision AI systems are much harder to operate. Either way, this is to show you that if Amazon has such a big grocery store and they want people to shop comfortably, then I believe it is essential to create much bigger Dash Carts. Furthermore, if that happens, not only can these smart shopping carts be available in grocery stores, but they can become a good fit for convenience, department, clothing, warehouse and all other types of stores.
Another change that can help improve this system of self-scanning carts is the information that could be displayed on the touchscreen of the cart. Yes, even though now with the Dash Cart you can view the subtotal of your products, pull up your Alexa shopping list, and even view the items you scanned, I believe this can be taken further. With an android touchscreen on a shopping cart, the features that could be displayed are endless. Customers should be able to search up items and maybe view what aisle it is on or maybe even the exact location. In addition, they might be able to view how many items are left, if it is available, and the price before even going to look for it. This can work in conjunction with maybe the Alexa shopping list as each item could be displayed with the location of the product in the store. Not only that, but the touchscreen can have an option to display information about the items in the cart like measurement of calories, proteins, carbohydrates or other important facts about the product. All of these things can help make the quick trip that was already quicker, even quicker. I believe if features and updates like these can be brought to the system of Dash Carts, then it will really benefit and satisfy customers and make them feel the notion of “what life would have been like without these shopping carts”.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, it seems the idea with Amazon’s Dash Cart and smart shopping carts in general is to bring much more convenience into people’s lives. A smart shopping cart just fits in with the future of technology. Whether you want to call it cashier-less technology or self-scanning carts, the idea is it takes something as simple as going grocery shopping and makes it even easier. This is what ubiquitous computing, or the Internet of Things is all about. Physical objects that are embedded with software, sensors, and/or other technologies. A smart shopping cart is exactly what that is. Grocery stores or going shopping seem to have been the same for almost 20 years now. It is about time that a new innovation comes around, and smart shopping carts seem to be the step in the right direction.
