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7-Eleven begins trial of store with no cashiers

7-Eleven begins trial of store with no cashiers
A look inside 7-Eleven's new cashierless store
A look inside 7-Eleven's new cashierless store
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A look inside 7-Eleven's new cashierless store
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A look inside 7-Eleven's new cashierless store

Convenience stores that rely on technology instead of cashiers to keep things ticking over might sound like a futuristic notion, but there are a number of such concepts being tested around the world. 7-Eleven is the latest to enter the fray, today announcing a trial of a new store in Texas that will be unstaffed with customers left to their own devices.

The store is located at 7-Eleven’s headquarters in Irving, Texas, and will be available only to the company’s employees, with a view to rolling it out to the general public if things go well.

Instead of the traditional clerk, the customers use a smartphone app to handle all their shopping, with algorithms and “predictive technology” tracking individual customers and their purchases, before offering a detailed receipt in the app after they walk out the door.

This works in a similar way to Amazon Go, a convenience store that also relies on a smartphone app and opened to company employees in 2016. A convenience store in Shanghai called Wheelys, which opened in 2017, is another example of this approach. 7-Eleven hopes to introduce customers to the idea a little further down the track.

“Introducing new store technology to 7-Eleven employees first has proven to be a very productive way to test and learn before launching to a wider audience,” says Mani Suri, 7-Eleven senior vice president. “They are honest and candid with their feedback, which enables us to learn and quickly make adjustments to improve the experience. This in-house, custom built technology by 7-Eleven engineers is designed for our current and future customers.”

Source: 7-Eleven via PRNewswire

4 comments
4 comments
paul314
On the other hand, employees under surveillance are probably much less prone to shoplift than your average convenience-store customer, and much less likely to work out methods for doing so successfully. They really need some kind of Red Team to go play with this concept.
Michael son of Lester
No employees around? Nice...

Walk-in wearing a ball cap and a hoody plus IR blocking glasses to conceal your identity. Use a pocket camera converted into a short-range (1 yard) mini EMP generator to disable the RFID product tracking. Help yourself to whatever you want and calmly leave the store.

Just saying...
buzzclick
If this requires an RFI identification for each article for sale, this may make shopping there less affordable. But then again, with less employee salaries to pay it may compensate to the benefit of the customer while some staff are out of a job.
Miner Bob
First thing I'm thinking is who is going to stop dis-honest and hungry homeless people eating and drinking in the aisles and then just walking out? They're decriminalizing so many things, the cops won't come there. Unless they make you pre-qualify like Sams or Costco to enter the store, shoplifters will strip it clean.