General Introduction

A shopping mall is a place where individuals get their everyday necessities. A new study from Forrester Research and Digimarc finds that the checkout experience and the length of the checkout line are very important to shoppers – and can influence the shopping decisions of almost 40% of shoppers who are not loyal to a single grocery location. According to market research from retail council, 87% of Canadian adults say they would consider residing in a “live, work, shop, play” environment, and it is clear shopping centre owners are listening carefully to consumers’ desire for easier access, more simplicity, greater convenience, and fabulous shopping experiences.

The Smart Trolley idea is based on the most popular automated self-checkout system in most retail stores in developed countries. The concept is designed into a smaller version of the automated self-checkout system and incorporated into a shopping trolley with a user interface screen which allows customers to make payment for items scanned and placed in the trolley before leaving the store. It is designed to be highly efficient and fully synchronized with the retailer’s current system.

This is to release pressure at the tills during peak hours. The Smart Trolley comes with all the traditional services including scanning an item to check for price and details, also there are other additional features that will be included in the design such as locating an item in the store by typing in the item’s name in the search field on the user interface screen which will automatically show the item’s location in the store. The Smart Trolley is designed with security measures to prevent it being wheeled out from the store’s premises and to protect customer’s card details as it is designed to accept only card payment for items bought in the store.

The other innovation of the business idea is deploying the principal “Spring + Gear + Motor = Energy” from Satoshi Yanagisawa into Smart Trolley’s wheel system, so it generates the sufficient energy to charge the battery. As a result, no external charging is required for the Smart Trolley.

The business idea is to design in a way that either the business can buy the whole Smart Trolley or customers can just buying the electronics part as an accessory to add it into existing trolley.

What problem does “Smart Trolley” to solve?

For customers, waiting in line to buy groceries is the incredibly inconvenient. A research report from Forrester Research and Digimarc revealed three of the most crucial factors influencing a shopper’s decision: the first two – price and location – were a given, the strong showing of checkout experience was a surprise. 50% of survey respondents cited checkout experience as “very important” and another 35% cited it as “important” in deciding where to shop. According to the report, “while it’s no surprise that customers don’t want to wait in long lines and have slow checkout processes, the extent to which they care might surprise many retailers.”

When the question “how satisfied are you with each of the following parts of your shopping experience?” was asked, only 23% of respondents answered “length of lines,” making it the aspect of shopping with which they were least satisfied – surprisingly, ranked even lower than “price.”

“Shoppers today have less time than ever to get their grocery shopping done, and they want it to be a fast and easy experience,” according to the report, an observation borne out of the finding that long lines are the most common reason for shopping trip abandonment. Over half of shoppers are willing to spend less in a store, or even walk away entirely, to avoid a slow checkout.

The risk to retailers goes beyond a one-time loss due to abandonment. Three-quarters of shoppers do not exclusively shop at any single grocery store, indicating that shoppers will not hesitate to bring their business to a competitor for a better checkout experience. Long lines and poor checkout experience are the third highest reason shoppers would go elsewhere – after location and price – cited by 18% of respondents who were asked “what factor of the shopping experience would prompt you to shop elsewhere for your groceries?”

It concluded, “forrester forecasts that over the next five years, online grocery shopping will nearly double, growing from $185 billion in 2018 to $334 billion in 2022. To compete with the speed and convenience of online shopping, retailers must make the in-store experience better. Surveyed consumers say that means faster checkout, among other amenities.

Impact of Our Business Venture

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are a call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. Our business idea is contributing to Goal 9 of the SDG as it fosters innovation in the grocery industry.

RFID scanning, self-service checkout, and smart power (spring & gear system) technologies are deployed in our “Smart Trolley” system to develop an innovative and sustainable product for use in the grocery industry.

We are hopeful that the launch of Smart Trolley in the Canadian market would help drive innovation in the Canadian grocery industry.

Benefits of Smart Trolley in Shopper’s Perspective:

Smart Trolley helps shoppers improve their shopping experience at the grocery stores.

• Customers do not have to wait in long queues for shopping: The “smart trolley” has been developed to enable shoppers to bypass traditional checkout lanes, one of the most unpleasant moments for any grocery shopper. With Smart Trolley, one may purchase the goods they have selected without dealing with lineups and cashiers, thereby helping shoppers save time in the checkout process.
• The Smart Trolley can calculate checkout price automatically as shoppers place goods and products inside it. This makes it easy for the customers to know how much they have to pay as they shop. It is designed to be highly efficient and fully synchronised with the retailer’s current system.
• The Smart Trolley can also help customers locate the items they are looking for without having to seek help from a store assistant.

Benefits of Smart Trolley in Supermarket’s Perspective: 

• The Smart Trolley is a sustainable product, as the use of RFID tags does not involve any energy consumption. No external charging (wall socket) required as it adopts the “spring + gear” system which can generate the energy to battery charger automatically.
• Adoption of the Smart Trolley system can also help reduce the manpower required to support checkout activities and increases customer satisfaction as the Smart Trolley system helps to improve customers’ shopping experience.
• The product is cost-efficient compared to other solutions in the market. The target price is in a range of USD 300-500/unit

Together, introduction of the Smart Trolley system can help reconfigure existing infrastructure in the grocery industry and increase the efficiency in the use of human resources, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Goal 9 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal.