Israeli company Shekel Scales that specialises in advanced weighing technology conducted a survey in which most respondents showed positive attitudes towards shopping technology.
Released at the National Retail Federation in New York this month, the report highlighted that 90 per cent of the people believed technology would ‘significantly improve the overall shopping experience.’
More than 30 per cent of respondents said they would like technology that would make it faster and easier for them to enter and exit stores, despite the fact that nearly 60 per cent of consumers mentioned technology that speeds up and simplifies the self-checkout process. The Shekel poll, carried out via SurveyMonkey, analyzes consumer opinions and attitudes about autonomous and frictionless shopping technology, including self-checkout, smart carts, and vending machines. The study had a 45 per cent male and a 55 per cent female response rate, with almost 80 per cent of respondents being between the ages of 18 and 60.
“We first conducted a similar survey two years ago at NRF 2020, and this year’s results remove any lingering speculation as to whether consumers truly want technology to improve their shopping experience. All in all, consumers want to get in and get out as quickly and easily as possible,” said Nir Leshem, CEO of Shekel. “Whether retailers achieve that goal by offering faster, easier self-checkout or new smart carts, consumers are willing to adapt and will openly embrace any technology required to satisfy their needs. This marks a critical time for retailers to evaluate their autonomous and frictionless shopping strategies and how retail technology, like Shekel’s, can play a valuable role in enhancing the customer experience and capturing greater market share.”
The survey cited other findings as key:
- An overwhelming 90 per cent of consumers said a self-checkout system that could automatically identify produce items would be helpful during the checkout process.
- 50 per cent of consumers said they were not familiar with the concept of a smart cart. When provided with the definition of “a shopping cart that automatically performs checkout when items are added to the cart,” 74 per cent of respondents said they were very likely or somewhat likely to try a smart cart if the option was available to them.
- The possibility of recording inaccurate transactions (60per cent) and potential technical difficulties with using a smart cart (40 per cent) were cited together as the top barriers to smart cart adoption in a majority of responses.
- Consumers cited limited product selection (51 per cent), a lack of fresh products (39 per cent), and no customer service (33 per cent) as the top three frustrations associated with vending machines.
At the conference, Shekel also introduced technology to reduce self-checkout times, which include faster automatic recognition of fresh produce, and smart shelves that identify every item laid on it and record each transaction.
Shekel also introduced its new smart cart technology to retailers at NRF 2023. This technology offers a first-of-its-kind frictionless shopping solution to streamline customer shopping experiences and improve security and legal-for-trade weighing for merchants. In order to meet the retail market’s demand for automatic product recognition as the cornerstone of autonomous and frictionless retail, the system weighs both fresh produce and packaged goods.
Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Shekel develops technology for retail and healthcare, apart from providing custom solutions. For retailers, the company develops products for challenges such as store automation, overstock and understock issues, loss prevention and enhancing the consumer experience.
