This NYC Startup Redefines Retail by Bringing The Digital Experience Offline
With the popularity of online shopping and Amazon, physical retail is suffering, but FutureProof Retail has a solution to draw more people into stores.
How to beat them at their own game.
In October last year leaked internal documents revealed Amazon's intention to open 2000 grocery stores over the next 10 years, leaving many wondering what the tech giant could offer in the already crowded space. Then in November they announced Amazon Go, their solution for eliminating checkout lines, putting the industry on notice that they were going to have to innovate on customer experience to stay competitive.
Now, with Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, they’ll be competing in the grocery market much sooner than expected - and raising customers’ expectations all the while. The timeline for traditional players to innovate looks a lot shorter.
Consider the following:
Today’s announcement is the starting gun for the race to the next generation grocery experience, and Amazon / Whole Foods will need at least a year to deliver on it.
Traditional brick and mortar retailers can use this time to get that next generation shopping experience into customers’ hands before Amazon does, and that’s exactly what WalMart, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Ahold and more are doing with their nascent line free checkout programs.
There’s still time for retailers to get ahead if they:
Beating Amazon won’t be easy, but at least the roadmap is clear. Amazon has given the grocery industry a big early warning, and retailers who take that head start will be positioned to win. By introducing customers to next generation shopping experiences now, retailers not only prevent Amazon from seducing their customers next year, but increase the chances Amazon will be met with a collective yawn.
New York based FutureProof Retail develops next generation shopping experiences featuring line free mobile checkout, order ahead and advanced marketing capabilities. FutureProof's technology can be easily retrofit to a wide range of retail formats and has been live for more than 2 years in formats including grocery, fast fashion and fresh market. Retailers interested in trying FutureProof's line free shopping experience can schedule a demo here.
With the popularity of online shopping and Amazon, physical retail is suffering, but FutureProof Retail has a solution to draw more people into stores.
Colruyt Group deploys Solution at Spar Supermarkets and OKay Convenience Stores
Some retailers worry that adopting a self-checkout solution will deprive them of a key point of contact with their customers.
OKay convenience stores in Belgium allow customers to scan items and pay right from their smarthphones.
Many equate mobile self-checkout apps with big retailers like Amazon or Sam’s Club given the size of the technology investment required. But that’s not entirely the case, as the following Stores article reports on FutureProof Retail as an emerging player in this growing market.
Retailers have long looked for ways to improve the checkout process, but their disdain for long lines pales in comparison with how customers feel about standing around waiting to pay for their products. FutureProof Retail was launched to do something about it.
FutureProof Retail Enables Retailers to Offer Commercial-Speed Scanning to Consumers With Scandit Barcode Scanner SDK
From store-grown produce to a renewed emphasis on service counters, retailers are focusing on innovation as well as time-honored strategies to keep their stores relevant
Following the launch at its Spar supermarkets, Colruyt Group will make the FutureProof Retail line-free mobile self-scanning checkout solution available at OKay stores starting in OKay De Pinte (Aug. 22), OKay Compact at Grootsermentstraat (Aug. 28), OKay Pepingen (Aug. 29) and OKay Ohey (Sept. 5).
(And why line-free mobile checkout is the future)
New York’s Fairway Market has been quietly testing a new technology in stores that allows customers to shop using their mobile phones and skip checkout lines entirely.
FutureProof Retail was selected by Xplorex IT magazine as one of the 10 best retail solution providers of 2018.
Mobile Scan-and-Pay technology offers many benefits to grocers beyond reduced labor costs.
Amazon Go once again captured headlines a couple of weeks ago on a rumor that the e-commerce king is preparing to build more Go stores in Seattle and one in Los Angeles.
In turn, traditional retailers are thinking about how to combat one of Amazon Go's most attractive features: convenience.
Retail Partners Colruyt Group – Colruyt Group’s entrepreneurial division – is creating an app for Spar which allows customers to use their smartphones to scan and pay for their own groceries.
Amazon's partly automated retail store, Amazon Go, debuted with a location in Seattle in January, but a new report suggests that expansion plans are already underway. "Multiple people familiar with the company’s plans" told Recode that Amazon could open as many as six new stores by the end of 2018.
In some Spar supermarkets customers will soon be able to shop without waiting in line.
Colruyt Group is testing FutureProof Retail's market leading self-scanning mobile checkout solution in its Spar stores.
After a yearlong delay, Amazon’s checkout-free convenience store opened in Seattle
Staffless stores are an emerging phenomenon in China, as e-Commerce companies big and small are investing lots of financial, technology, and product development resources in the area.
Walmart starts rolling out it's Scan & Go application at 20 Canadian locations.
It will only get worse from here, analysts say. Under Amazon, Whole Foods has cut prices of marquee products, a harbinger of the price wars to come. Among the most vulnerable are small regional chains that were facing fierce competition even before Amazon showed up.
FutureProof Retail (FPR) and Speedy Checkout Line AS in Norway have entered into a partnership to bring FPR’s line free mobile checkout and service counter solutions to customers in Scandinavia.
Walmart is expanding the deployment of its Scan & Go mobile app, which is being tested in approximately 12 stores across Northwest Arkansas, Florida, Texas and Georgia. The chain is now rolling out the app for use in at least 10 additional locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Nashville markets.
Tech replaces ten items or less to help shoppers get out of the store faster
Walmart's latest digital move to compete with Amazon will make reordering frequent purchases easier for its online shoppers.
A new research report, Evolving Retail Concepts and Venues with Mobile Self-Checkout, describes different shopping approaches and integrated technology systems that are currently in use or in testing. These systems include Amazon Go, Scan & Go from Walmart and Sam's Club, Mobile Checkout from FutureProof Retail, and others.
In Shanghai, a prototype of a new 24-hour convenience store has no staff, no registers, and the whole thing is on wheels, designed to eventually drive itself to a warehouse to restock, or to a customer to make a delivery.
Amazon may be bringing its futuristic ‘no queue’ grocery store to the U.K. after the online retail giant filed several trademark applications for Amazon Go, the app that allows consumers to bypass checkouts when they shop.
Having already conquered the world of online shopping, Amazon is now gearing up to go IRL where it counts: groceries.
Walmart's supercentre in Ancaster, ON will feature a host of new technological innovations, including Walmart's self-scanning solution Scan & Go.
In an interview with Superb Crew, FutureProof Retail founder Di Di Chan details how the companies software solves problems for customers and retailers alike.
A new Walmart store in Tomball will include Walmart Scan & Go, Walmart's self-scanning mobile checkout application.
Read about FutureProof Retail's Mobile Checkout app on page 73 of this months edition of Shopper Marketing by the Path to Purchase institute.
As Walmart takes a major step forward with its Scan & Go platforms and the Amazon Go store makes headlines, a significant upset might be coming to grocery retail now that these major players have the keys to push the grab-and-go strategy forward.
Customers at Walmart's new 190,000 square-foot Lake Nona Supercenter will be able to avoid long lines with the company's Scan & Go application.
After years of iOS exclusivity, Walmart rolled out an Android version of it's Scan & Go application. Walmart's Scan & Go enables customers to skip lines by scanning items and checking out on their smartphones. Scan & Go is currently availible at Walmart #520 in Roger, Arkansas.
Coop recently launched it's first six stores with a new self checkout concept across Denmark in both small and large cities. The concept enables customers to scan products and checkout with their phone, skipping the line.
The online behemoth's register-free store disrupts the landscape, but does more convenience take away from what food shopping has always been?
With Amazon Go making the dream of seamless AI-powered shopping a reality, how can reatailers and retail technology firms work together to keep pace with this disruption?
The singular format, traditional brack-and-mortar supermarket may soon be a relic of the past as retailers must adapt to changing consumer demands or risk becoming obsolete.
Italy’s largest supermarket chain, Coop Italia, has opened what it is calling the “Supermarket of the Future” near Milan. The concept features extensive use of technology to improve the shopping experience.
The Scottsboro public library has implemented a new self-checkout system allowing customers to skip the line while checking their books in and out.
Panasonic's new Regirobo concept automatically detects and bags items, creating a seamless shopping experience at it's pilot location in Osaka, Japan.
Rebecca Minkoff's move to adopt mobile self-checkout was designed to increase convenience, attract millenial shoppers, and put customers back in charge of their own time.
When we all got a peek at Amazon Go last week, the buzz was all about innovating the checkout experience. That, Karen Webster writes this week, is like saying that the iPhone was all about innovating the telephone call. Amazon Go, Webster posits, is Amazon’s sneak peek into how it plans to reinvent grocery by reinventing how consumers shop for food — and where they do it. And, she says, a sneak peek into what’s to come for all of retail, if Amazon’s foray into grocery succeeds.
Sure, the app — and grocery apps in particular — have been around pretty much since smartphones first came on the market. However, new innovations promise to upend how consumers shop and how retailers interact with their customers.
The online shopping giant Amazon unveiled Amazon Go today, it's spin on brick and mortar retail. Using advanced technology the store will allow users to enter, sign in with the Amazon go app, fill up their baskets, and walk out without stopping to checkout.
Amazon’s YouTube video introducing its Amazon Go convenience store shows that the company has broken conventional supermarket wisdom and that its foray into food is one traditional retailers should fear.
High fashion powerhouse Rebecca Minkoff unveiled self-checkout at the company's flagship store. The system will allow customers to buy everything from $200 handbags to $1,500 jackets totally autonomously.
Amazon's upcoming 2000 physical grocery stores will feature line-free-checkout.
California Fresh Market's newest location in San Luis Obispo features FutureProof Retail's radical new mobile self checkout solution.
“I have been on a 20-year quest to have in-store shopping,” Holzheu said, “and FutureProof has finally done it.”
Shoppers can skip the line and checkout on their phones at a new supermarket in San Luis Obispo
Retailer's app offers scan-and-checkout feature for new store
Whether consumers are ordering their groceries online, picking them up at curbside, or shopping in store, it's clear that technology is fundamentally redifining the shopping experience.
FutureProof Retail will be exhibiting with service and support partner SimpleWare Inc at the Unified Grocers 2016 Expo in Long Beach California, August 17th and 18th. We will be providing a sneak preview of our upcoming counter service capability.
Amazon wants to open 20 brick-and-mortar grocery stores over the next two years, and the online retailer believes the US market has room for up to 2,000 of its Amazon Fresh-branded grocery stores over the next decade.
The counter service product simplifies the process of ordering prepared foods at businesses ranging from cafes and food trucks to grocery stores and supermarkets.
Lines blur between shopping and payment channels as America goes increasingly mobile.
Sam's Club, a subsidiary of Walmart, recently launched its Scan-and-Go application in all 645 U.S. stores. Scan-and-Go enables customers to shop and checkout from their mobile devices without waiting on lines.
Tesco, the UK's largest retailer, announced it's plan to roll out it's "Scan as you Shop" service to an additional 20 locations. Scan as you Shop is currently availible at 350 Tesco locations, and used by more than 600,000 customers every week.
Retail CIO Outlook learns how FutureProof's loss prevention functions like an immune system.
New self install kit contains everything needed to provide mobile checkout, payment, customer service and loss prevention.
FutureProof Retail has made a splash with its app, developed using a “consumer-first” approach.
Mobile order-ahead through applications is increasing at an exponential rate, and will be a $38 bilion dollar industry by 2020.
FutureProof CEO Will Hogben has been appointed to RetailWire’s Brain Trust Panel.
Two California supermarkets pilot an app that lets shoppers scan their products in app and walk out of the store without waiting in line to check out with a cashier.
At Robert Ilijason's convenience store in Viken, Sweden, you won't find a single cashier. The store is entirely unmanned, with patrons using their smartphones or tablets to enter and purchase goods.
The cell phone has also started to become a part of the physical store experience. Now it starts to emerge solutions that enables customers to manage the purchasing process altogether by mobile phone. Mobile Checkout from New York-based company Future Proof is an example.
While AmazonFresh, FreshDirect and Peapod have offered consumers varying degrees of online and mobile grocery ordering for several years, the in-store experience could use some help.
FutureProof Retail (FPR), a software development provider, announced today their launch of Mobile Checkout – the retail industry’s first start-to-finish, secure self-checkout app.
A new application, unveiled at the 2016 National Retail Foundation trade show, allows consumers to scan items and pay with their phones.
Supermarkets are in the beginning of a retail revolution that will focus on enhancing consumer experiences, enabling customers to order their groceries for pickup, and innovating technologically so that shoppers can skip lines and check themselves out.
Future Proof Retail helps merchants capitalize on technology by making the in-store experience more pleasant, convenient and profitable.
Japanese businesses continue to agressively roll out self checkout solutions, a solution to the countries aging population and shortage of workers willing to take jobs as cashiers.
Emerging retail technologies will allow brick-and-mortar retailers to compete with the personalization and convenience provided by online shopping for the first time.
Every year Supermarkets cope with increasing overhead, labor costs, and decreasing margins. One company hopes to solve this problem with a combination of mobile self scanning, targeted offers, and store based predictive analytics.
TD Canada Trust announces a mobile payment solution in responce to research showing that the majority of Canadian's hate waiting in line to pay.
The coming transformation in retail payments will involve more technology and less human interaction.
The ubiquity of mobile devices have enabled many retailers to develop mobile shopping apps. The best of these apps include software-based barcode scanning, adding value for consumers and saving retailers money.
Self checkout systems are a vital component of the multichannel grocery store of the future. Providing unique solutions for specific customer needs, and working synergistically with existing points of sale.
While conventional self checkout kiosks offer both upsides and downsides to consumers, more than half of people surveyed reported that they prefered self checkout.
Despite initial reservations, retailers are embracing mobile self checkout and consumers are beginning to welcome the added value.
For all the rumors of self checkouts demise, the number of self checkout locations in North America is on the rise. Consumers are asking for more self checkout, and stores are benefiting. Stores are even beginning to experiment with mobile smartphone based self checkout.
Self Checkout is gaining popularity in the U.K. after a similar trend in the U.S. The new technology benefits consumers, retailers, and even improves shrinkage.