It’s not even noon pacific time as I write this and it’s already been a day packed full of cashierless checkout news. Things kicked off when Amazon announced a new full-sized grocery store using its Just Walk Out technology, and that was quickly followed up by Zippin and AiFi talking about newly launched cashierless checkout stores. All of these moves show that momentum for the cashierless checkout space that began earlier this year seems to be continuing unabated.
First let’s start off with Zippin, which said today it has opened up a new autonomous store in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, home of the Brooklyn Nets (the news was first reported by the Sports Business Journal earlier this month). What makes this store a little different from the ones Zippin previously opened in venues like Mile High Stadium and Golden 1 Center is the exclusive partnership with American Express. According to the Zippin blog post, the new store, which will sell an assortment of beverages, snacks and merchandise, is only open to American Express cardholders.
Cashierless checkout stores at sporting events is an alluring concept. The ability to walk into a store, grab what you want and leave without standing in line means you spend less time out of your seat and more time watching the action. With sporting events are just starting to come back, cashierless checkout also provides contactless retail experience. Given all that, it’s cool that AMEX is helping push the technology forward, but it’s a bummer that it’s only available to its cardholders. Such exclusivity reinforces digital divides and only provides the convenience of autonomous retail to the haves, while the have nots can go wait in line with everyone else.
Elsewhere, fellow cashierless checkout startup AiFi announced today that it has partnered with Polish convenience store chain Żabka to launch a cashierless checkout store in Poznan, Poland. AiFi’s announcement is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Amazon in that the autonomous Żabka location will be one of AiFi’s 210 sq. ft. NanoStores. These NanoStores are essentially pre-fab shipping containers that can be shipped and set up just about anywhere. Future AiFi-powered Żabka autonomous stores will be a combination of NanoStores and retrofitted Żabka micro markets.
AiFi has partnerships with 15 store brands internationally, including Choice Market, Carrefour, Loop Neighborhood and Wundermart. Earlier this year, Wundermart said it plans to launch more than a thousand cashierless stores using AiFi’s technology.
While cashierless checkout hasn’t crossed over into the mainstream yet, today’s flurry of activity in the space further illustrates that such a time is not that far away.
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