No more checkout lines? Kroger tests smart carts that let you scan items as you shop
.png "Kroger is testing its new KroGO shopping cart, which allows shoppers to scan items as they browse and pay right at their cart.")
Kroger is experimenting with a new way to save customer’s time, make trips to the grocery store more convenient, and potentially eliminate the need for checkout lines.
The KroGO shopping cart comes equipped with a checkout screen, allowing shoppers to scan items as they browse — and even weigh produce.
Once customers have picked up all the goods they came for, they can pay right at their cart and exit through the self-checkout area, according to the Kroger website. The carts are also environmentally friendly; customers are expected to bring their own reusable bags, or purchase them at the store.
The cashier-less option also makes for a non-contact shopping experience, for which demand has surged.
Grocery delivery company Instacart exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, as millions of Americans sought ways to obtain their basic necessities without risking possible exposure to COVID-19, McClatchy News reported.
Kroger is testing the smart carts at a store in Madeira, Ohio, near the company’s Cincinnati headquarters, the website says.
It’s not clear if Kroger has plans to test the carts at other store locations across the country.
Also unclear is how Kroger employees, and the U.S. workforce more broadly, might be impacted if smart carts prove successful and are adopted on a large scale.
Nearly 40% of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of automation, according to a 2020 World Economic Forum report.
From car manufacturers to fast food restaurants, American companies have been slowly embracing automation -- promising greater efficiency and greater profit, likely at the expense of human laborers who might suddenly find themselves replaced -- but the pandemic has sped up the process, Fortune reported.
“Companies used to have responsibilities to their workers. That’s just not the case anymore. Workers are disposable,” Tom Smith, associate professor of finance at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, told Fortune. “So, once you automate, you have zero responsibility to the workers. I’m not saying that’s right or the ethical thing, but companies just don’t feel they have any responsibility for their workers once they’ve been displaced.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 8:47 PM with the headline "No more checkout lines? Kroger tests smart carts that let you scan items as you shop."