WORLD’S FIRST UNMANNED CONVENIENCE STORES

Are you fed up with surly or slow convenience store clerks? Do you want to buy something you’re slightly ashamed of, and would prefer not to face a human clerk? Wheelys offers a solution.

A Swedish firm best known for selling bicycle-mounted coffee bars, creperies, ice cream dispensers, and juice bars, Wheelys has opened an unmanned convenience store in Shanghai, China. The prototype store will be open around the clock, seven days a week. Because it requires no staff, the Wheelys concept will make it easier for entrepreneurs with limited capital to enter the grocery business.

Wheelys tested the concept successfully in a small town in rural Sweden. The Shanghai store marks its first test in a dense urban setting.

For access to the Wheelys store, the customer installs an app on his iOS or Android tablet or phone. The door opens automatically for anyone carrying a device with a registered app. The customer scans the bar codes for any goods he wants to buy, and Wheelys charges them to his credit card.

To prevent theft, a camera monitors the store. And since customers log themselves in through their apps upon entry, they can be identified easily if they take any goods without scanning them.

Wheelys says that if the Shanghai test is successful, it will license the unmanned store technology so retailers can incorporate it into their existing stores. A company spokesman said, “What Uber did for taxis, we do for retail.”

The Wheelys system is not as advanced as the unmanned store concept currently under development by Amazon– though Amazon has yet to test its system in an actual market setting. Amazon said that its stores will not require scanning of individual products. After logging in, the customer with simply load his cart with the goods he wants, and a scanner will total his purchases as he leaves.

Amazon has not said it plans to license its unmanned store technology.

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