“In store, active service includes the form of payment at the end of the customer journey. Fitch research has shown that payment is one of two integral factors that contribute to a positive shopping experience. Retail experiences are defined by ‘peaks’, the emotional high point for the customer, and the ‘end’ – usually payment before departing. If the payment process is annoying and convoluted, then it will negatively impact the whole journey and it will be fresh on their mind as they leave the store. If it is positive and the retailer can offer multiple ways to pay, they will be viewed as more service-orientated.”

“Grocers looking to fill online orders more quickly are testing micro-fulfillment systems that can spit out as many as 4,000 orders a week but can still be housed in the back of stores or in urban areas where space is at a premium. The store owners are evaluating whether automation can help tamp down costs while speeding up deliveries and they are turning to a new set of startups aiming to make e-commerce fulfillment more efficient in a small footprint.”

“The days of supermarket queues are numbered. That’s if Amazon and a slew of well-financed startups’ recent activities are anything to go by. Amazon’s cashierless automated stores are expanding everywhere , while emerging competitors like Standard Cognition and Grabango are raising sizable sums to bring cashierless technology to more supermarkets .”

“US supermarket chain Giant Eagle is piloting a checkout-free shopping and payments system that uses a network of cameras and sensors to let customers enter a store, select and place items in their shopping basket as normal, check out from their mobile phone and then simply walk out of the store. The retailer, one of the 20 largest grocery chains in the US, is working on the project with checkout-free technology startup Grabango . Grabango’s technology is designed to be retrofitted to existing stores, both small and large, and does not require customers to scan items as they shop in order to add them to their shopping basket.”

“Grocery delivery has become a a big business: 36% of shoppers will spend 26% to 40% of their grocery budget online as soon as next year, up from 10% in 2018, according to the Personalization in Digital Food Retail – Shoppers Expect More study by IDC Retail Insights and Precima . This market could reach $100 billion in annual sales by 2022, according to data from Food Marketing Institute.”