Do You Know How A Self-service Supermarket Works?
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- Issue Time
- Sep 8,2023
Summary
Amazon built an self-service supermarket called Amazon Go in 2021. There are no cashiers, no salespeople in the supermarket. Do you know how an self-service supermarket should work? This article will take you to understand the secret of the self-service supermarket.
In recent years, self-service supermarket have become very popular, and various e-commerce companies have launched their own self-service supermarket. There is no need for cashiers and no need to be on duty, which reduces labor costs to a certain extent. Open 24 hours, take as you go, do not have to wait in line, greatly convenient for consumers. The emergence of self-service supermarkets is the product of the gradual maturity of mobile payment methods and computer vision technologies in recent years, which high-tech is used in self-service supermarkets? Let's find out.
Many years ago, the concept of self-service vending has appeared, and many public places can see self-service vending machines. At that time, mobile payment methods had not yet taken off, and people could choose to buy goods in vending machines by inserting coins. However, due to various factors such as volume, the goods in the vending machine are only limited to drinks and snacks. Today's self-service supermarket, in the true sense of self-service management.
The operation of an self-service supermarket needs to solve three core problems: the identity of the buyer, the goods purchased and the method of payment. At the beginning of the store, the supermarket will generally have a authentication identification of the membership to determine that the entrant has the purchase qualification. This link is achieved by some supermarkets through mobile phone scanning code, and some supermarkets through face recognition, a more advanced authentication method. When the certification is passed, the gate is opened, and consumers can enter the supermarket smoothly. At this time, the corresponding payment account has also been verified, and it is also ready for the payment after the purchase of goods in the later period.
From the moment you enter the supermarket, your identity is already known to the store. Cameras all over the supermarket, but also record your every footprint in it, it can be said that everyone's behavior in the supermarket is transparent. At the same time, this recording method is also convenient for people to make statistics on various operational data such as real-time customer flow, daily stay time and repeat rate of supermarkets, and then form consumer behavior analysis reports to provide data support for the operation of supermarkets.
There are several popular ways to judge the purchase of goods. One is through RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, each commodity is embedded in an electronic chip, the chip records the name and price of the commodity and other information. When consumers pass through the self-service cashier area, there will be sensor devices to read the information in the chip, so as to determine the purchase of goods. The other is to use image recognition technology to collect the actions of consumers to take and return the goods, as well as the changing status of the goods on the shelf to determine whether the goods are purchased. At the same time rely on infrared sensors, pressure sensors and other equipment to determine the weight of goods and other information. In this way, supermarkets know not only what consumers buy, but also how much they buy.
In the era of big data, the operation of self-service supermarkets is more efficient and reasonable. Real-time detection of shelf goods, convenient timely completion of replenishment and other operations, but also record the consumer's purchase preferences. Real-time customer flow, daily stay time, repeat rate and other operational data detection and analysis, so that supermarkets better understand consumers. In the future, self-service supermarkets may become a trend.