Stores are facing new challenges because of the Pandemic. Tech giants are encroaching on businesses. Retailers are facing a host of inventory issues due to supply chain snarls. Seven in 10 shoppers said that out-of-stocks are worse now than at the beginning of the epidemic.
There isn't a silver bullet, but "smart" store technology can help to tackle many of the stock and retention related problems stores wrestle with today. Shopic is a startup that sells clip-on touchscreen hardware for shopping carts that identifies items to display promotions while acting as a self-service checkout window.
The investors are looking at potential. Shopic raised $35 million in a Series B funding round with participation from Vintage Investment Partners, Clal Insurance, IBI Tech Fund, Tal Venture and Shufersal. A source with knowledge of the matter said it was in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Golan was a security researcher at Check Point and co-launched Shopic with two other people. Shopic's model began to take form when the three met in the Israeli Defense Force.
Shopic is the image's credit.
In an email interview, Golan said that they wanted to find ways to close the gap between online and brick and mortar stores. The first product was a solution called a Scan and Go. We realized that large supermarkets needed a different solution if they were to provide a full interactive experience. We came up with Shopic's unique smart cart solution.
Shopic has a device that can be attached to shopping carts and used to charge up. Two cameras pointed toward the cart's basket feed footage, which recognize products as they're put in or removed from the cart. Shoppers can see an in-store map of aisles and ads for store- branded or third-party products.
Stores can connect Shopic's platform to existing online and in-store ad platforms. Customers can skip the checkout line if they use the touchscreen to pay.
Shopic updates a large product database on a weekly basis with as many as 10,000 new entries. When Shopic's devices are deployed in a store for the first time, they have to be exposed to every item at least once, but Golan claims that Shopic is making progress towards streamlining installations.
New items are added every week and old items need to be re-trained. Automatic detection of package changes is one of the tools we have built to collect, maintain, and make data accessible more easily. Even if a new item goes on the shelves without being trained, it can already be trained and recognized by the system.
The amount of data Shopic collects will be expanded by introducing cameras on the device. Golan says that the cameras will look for missing products, price-tagging errors, and whether the shelves are aligned with planograms.
The data will give valuable information for the store.
Shopic is trying to corner the market for "smart cart" tech by working with some of the largest supermarkets in Europe, the Americas and Israel. Dash Cart is currently being piloted in Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh stores. Several self-checkout carts that were tested in an Ohio Kroger store were developed by a company owned by Instacart. Veeve, one of Shopic's closest rivals, recently brought its shopping cart platform to Albertsons stores.
Shopic is the image's credit.
Shopic has indirect competitors in the form of Trigo, Aifi and Grabango, which use cameras to spot which items shoppers grab and automatically check them out after they leave the store. After expanding Just Walk Out to Whole Foods locations, Amazon began licensing it to third-party merchants.
It isn't clear that shoppers want "smart carts" in the first place Walmart received blowback for a patent describing a smart cart that could measure a shopper's heart rate, temperature, speed and amount of force they applied to the handle as they walked around a store. Personal data like partial debit and credit card numbers can be collected by smart shopping carts. Caper's system was leaking data through electronic receipts it sent via text message, according to a security report.
Shopic takes pains to protect privacy, anonymize purchase data and blur the faces of shoppers if they are captured by the cameras. The data is owned by Shopic's retail customers and the company isn't using it for anything other than that. Shopic only makes money by charging customers a subscription fee
If the price is right, retailers may be able to resist the lure of smart carts. At a time when worker shortages are widespread, they reduce the need for labor by speeding up the checkout process. At least in theory, the ability to track shoppers' preferences in detail will boost purchases. According to internal data, Shopic has increased shoppers' monthly spending by up to 8%.
The solution is fully commercial and has processed hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions. The need for more hybrid approaches to food retailing, one that combines the best of online commerce and physical stores, was spurred by the Pandemic. Since we serve an industry that is less prone to downturns, we don't experience much impact from the general downturn in tech. We keep a close eye on the macro situation and make sure we conduct ourselves frugally.
Shopic plans to focus on customer acquisition and deployment in the coming months. By the end of the year, the company plans to have more than 100 employees, with the addition of 30 new hires.
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