Taobao, a unit of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), has unveiled a pop-up café that operates without cashiers in the Hangzhou region of China. The cashier-less café works in the same as Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Go store.
“This store is our endeavor to explore new modes of brick and mortar retail combined with e-commerce,” said the chief executive officer of Alibaba, Zhang Yong.
When walking into the café, customers scan their Taobao ecommerce app on their devices and then pick the item or items they came in for and head out. The café occupies space measuring 200 square meters and on offer are snacks, fast food and beverages. The café has a capacity of 50 customers.
e-Shopping System
Alibaba’s subsidiary, Ant Finance, developed the e-shopping system of the café. Currently there are assistants who have been employed to help shoppers in familiarizing themselves with how the technology works. According to Ant Finance’s senior technical advisor, Zeng Xiaodong, the cashier-less café uses a combination of facial recognition and visual sensors to minimize error rates.
To test the system technicians pretended to shoplift items by hiding them in bags and trouser pockets but the checkout machines were able to identify the items that had been picked from the shelves and the technicians were billed.
Big data
Alibaba has, however, clarified that it is not interested in getting into the restaurant business but it is just about making shopping more convenient and faster in brick and mortar stores. This is according to Alibaba’s chief marketing officer, Chris Tung.
Alibaba’s cashier-less store comes a couple of months after Amazon launched a grocery store that works in the same way in Seattle, Washington. Just like with the Taobabo café, shoppers are able to pick the items they are interested in and then walk out as their orders will be charged to the Amazon account they are linked to.
While the shoppers benefit from a fast and convenient service Amazon benefits by gathering more data on its users which can be used to offer a more targeted shopping experience online.
On Wednesday shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd rose by 2.19% to close the day at $149.