Sainsbury’s lets customers ‘just walk out’ of contactless store in London

Customer using Sainsbury’s ‘just walk out’ contactless store in London
PICK & GO: The contactless store uses Just Walk Out technology so customers do not have to scan items

Customers using a Sainsbury’s contactless convenience store in London can now take the products they want to purchase from the shelves and charge their purchases to their credit or debit card without needing to scan them with their smartphone or visit a checkout by using a new feature on the UK retailer’s SmartShop app.

Sainsbury’s has launched the SmartShop Pick & Go service at its Holborn Circus outlet, enabling customers to enter the store by scanning a QR code generated in the SmartShop app and then leave and pay for the products they have chosen by scanning the QR code at the store’s automatic gates.

The service uses Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology to identify the products a customer selects and add them to a virtual shopping trolley, making the UK supermarket chain “the first international business customer” to deploy the ecommerce giant’s contactless shopping solution.

“Just Walk Out technology provides shoppers with a fast, efficient and seamless way to shop and is currently in dozens of Amazon Go stores, select Amazon Fresh stores and other third-party retailers in the US,” Sainsbury’s says.

“Customer demand for contactless ways to shop in stores has increased, especially since the start of the pandemic.

“SmartShop is available in around 1,400 Sainsbury’s stores, with sales up 173% versus last year.

“In supermarkets with SmartShop handsets, 30% of sales are now generated through the app, more than twice the level of last year, and SmartShop Mobile Pay is available in nearly all convenience stores.”

Sainsbury’s originally piloted its checkout-free self-scan SmartShop Scan, Pay & Go technology at the same outlet in Holborn Circus in April 2019.

Amazon announced that it planned to sell its contactless store technology to other retailers in March 2020 and opened a combined contactless-free outlet in New York with Starbucks earlier this month.

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