Israeli “Grab and go” technology already in stores

Israeli startup Trigo is now installing cashless and checkout-free shopping technology in a centrally located store in Tel Aviv. Customers can choose their products and then go out, skipping the check-out line. Stores in the UK, Germany, the US and the Netherlands have already installed the company’s technology

Trigo’s cashless shopping technology has already been delivered to British grocery giant Tesco.
Photo: Commons Wikimedia

Self-checkouts and online shopping are now getting their challenger. Advanced technology and digitized operations with frictionless commerce are once again changing grocery stores, the business magazine Forbes wrote at the end of last year.
Trigo’s business concept is to drive the digitization of retail chains. It is a technology company that builds infrastructure based on artificial intelligence for stores. The world’s leading retailers use the company’s systems to offer friction-free shopping for automated operations.
Israel’s largest supermarket chain Shufersal has now opened its first shop-&-go store in Tel Aviv. The retail chain has been testing Trigo’s technology for several years. In early September, the company announced the opening of its first automated supermarket store on Mendele Street in the central parts of the city, writes The Times of Israel.

Customers can enter, select their items and exit without having to stand in line or self-checkout. Payments and receipts are handled digitally.
Trigo uses algorithms on ceiling-mounted cameras that can automatically track customers’ movements and product choices in the store in real time, writes the newspaper, and goes on to report that Trigo’s cashless shopping technology is already in operation in a Tesco grocery store in London, in stores in Berlin and Cologne, in a Netto City store in Munich and an Aldi Nord store in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The company has also established itself in the United States, in a store in New Jersey.
Retailers all over the world are vying to offer so-called friction-free shopping to gain a competitive edge, create better earnings and to meet Amazon’s expansion into the grocery trade. Even on Amazon, the customer only goes in and out with their goods, skipping the checkout procedure.

Self-service terminals and bar-codes were introduced to save costs and reduce the need for employees in manned checkouts. So-called friction free trade takes this development several steps further.
The obvious challenges are cyber security, breaches of personal integrity, data collection and how stores use the information collected about customers. Computer technology makes – for better or for worse – global tracking of billions of citizens entirely possible.