The Innovation of the Cashierless Store: A Preliminary Analysis in Italy

Abstract

The retail sector, under the pressure of digitalization and technological innovation, has experienced profound changes in the last decade, and retailers have had to cope with these changes by implementing new business models and competitive strategies with the aim of satisfying the consumers’ needs. In the last few decades, the sector has been affected by different new trends, from the birth of supermarkets to the advent of e-commerce, up to the introduction of cashierless stores. The latter represents a new category of store that is totally computer-based and digitalized, in which the use of cameras, sensors and self-shelves minimizes human interaction. Amazon pioneered this emerging concept, with the launch of Amazon Go, but other start-up companies are rapidly entering the cashierless retail market and embracing the challenge. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the knowledge of Italian consumers of cashierless shops, and the relevance of different factors related to this new kind of shops. A questionnaire was sent to a sample of more than 1000 consumers to identify and evaluate the actual situation and knowledge of this phenomenon, which is not yet diffuse in Italy. A statistical analysis, regarding both their knowledge about cashierless stores and the customer experience, is provided to discuss the most relevant factors affecting the customers’ perceptions and attitudes, with a comparison per gender and type of users. The results of the provided analysis reveal that the phenomenon is very little known, and this is certainly influenced by the lack of these stores in Italy.

Automation and social impacts: winners and losers

“…Technological innovations enter this node of agrifood systems primarily via the global market. For wholesalers, retailers, restaurants, and food service providers, recent automation technologies have reduced labour needs (Gazzola et al, 2022) and increased sales and productivity (Rudd, 2019). However, the most substantial technological advancements in the global distribution sector in recent years are concentrated in e-commerce (FMI and Hartman Group, 2021;Reinartz, Wiegand and Imschloss, 2019), with potential to drive technological innovation upstream in agrifood systems.…”