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BUSINESS Saturday 9 February 2019
A25

Retailers are shopping for ways to get rid of checkout lines

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and refour chain in France and
JOSEPH PISANI Zabka convenience stores
AP Business Writers in Poland. Others, includ-
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — ing Zippin, Grabandgo,
Get ready to say good Trigo Vision and Inokyo, say
riddance to the checkout they are negotiating deals
line. with retailers in the U.S. and
A year after Amazon other parts of the world, al-
opened its first cashier-less though none are ready to
store, startups and retail- identify them yet.
ers are racing to get simi- “Once a few big retail
lar technology in stores chains begin to deploy this
throughout the world, let- technology, it’s going to
ting shoppers buy groceries snowball and we will see
without waiting in line. more and more of them do-
If they work, cashier-less ing it,” says Michael Suswal,
stores will not only save co-founder of Standard
time but maybe money Cognition, another cashier-
too, for both cost-cutting less technology startup.
merchants and customers So far, companies work-
whose shopping habits are ing on the technology are
dissected. In this Jan. 22, 2018, file photo a shopper scans an Amazon Go app on a cellphone while entering finding ways to do without
From cameras and sensors, an Amazon Go store in Seattle. facial recognition. Their sys-
the stores will know when Associated Press tems rely on cameras for
shoppers pick up a prod- ter Trepp, CEO of FaceFirst, grab what they want and kets recently visited Ama- identifying objects rather
uct and put it down, and a Los Angeles company walk out. Cameras and zon Go’s two San Francisco than people. Like Amazon,
can send them a discount that so far has only sold its sensors on the ceiling track stores to come up with a they rely on tailored smart-
to tempt them to buy it. facial recognition tools to what’s taken so their credit number. Based on their phone apps to identify who
Merchants will be able to retailers trying to identify or debit cards are auto- observations of traffic pat- is entering the store and to
create more space for shoplifters and other crimi- matically charged when terns, they estimated about process the sale for what-
merchandise, better track nals. “But if it’s used to give they leave. Shoppers will 400 to 700 customers per ever products are taken.
when shelves need replen- people a 30 percent cou- know how long it took to day will visit each of the Both Standard Cognition
ishing and draw more busi- pon on something they shop, since Amazon sends roughly 2,000-square-foot and Zippin opened small
ness from the hordes of want that is going to be a an alert with their shopping Amazon Go stores, gener- stores in San Francisco last
customers who detest long nice benefit. That kind of time. ating sales of $1.1 million to year that have held invita-
lines. experience will help people “It was just a phenomenal $2 million annually, assum- tion-only demonstrations or
But the monitoring sys- embrace the technology.” experience,” said Tom ing an average purchase been open for limited hours
tem underlying cashier- Amazon has a head start in Hadfield, who bought a of $10. At the high end of with a scant selection of
less technology is bound the U.S., opening 10 conve- Coke Zero in a minute and that range, it works out to merchandise.
to raise new privacy issues nience stores in three cities: five seconds at one of the twice the sales of a typi- “I like the idea of being
and worries about cus- Chicago, San Francisco Go stores in San Francisco cal U.S. convenience store, able to come into a store,
tomer data falling into the and Seattle. The stores sell while visiting the city re- RBC calculated. grab what you want and
wrong hands, especially if salads and sandwiches for cently. Several startups are pitch- just walk out,” says Tomono-
stores deploy facial recog- lunch, everyday items like “You just know it’s going to ing technology to retailers ri Nishimura, a 30-year-old
nition software in the omni- toilet paper and Advil, and be the future,” he said. who want to create Ama- researcher for Fujitsu Labo-
present cameras watching groceries such as Cheerios Amazon doesn’t say how zon Go-like stores of their ratories after getting a bag
shoppers. and raw ground beef. much money its cashier- own. One of the compa- of Funyuns at Standard’s
“It could be scary, and it Shoppers scan an app to less stores make. But ana- nies, called AiFi, says it has small store in San Francisco
could be creepy,” says Pe- enter the Amazon Go store, lysts from RBC Capital Mar- signed deals with the Car- recently.q

Automakers recall 1.7 million cars with fatal airbags

By TOM KRISHER temperatures to cold. The ing in a 17-digit vehicle
AP Auto Writer most dangerous inflators identification number.
DETROIT (AP) — Subaru, are in areas of the South In the latest round, Subaru
Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen, along the Gulf of Mexico is recalling 826,144 vehicles,
Daimler Vans, Mercedes that have high humidity. including various Forester,
and Ferrari are recalling The recalls, which began Legacy and Outback mod-
about 1.7 million vehicles to in 2001, are being phased els from 2010 to 2014. Mer-
replace potentially deadly This June 25, 2017 file photo shows TK Holdings Inc. headquarters in over time and managed cedes is recalling 288,779
air bag inflators made by in Auburn Hills, Mich. by the U.S. National High- vehicles from model years
Takata Corp. of Japan. Associated Press way Traffic Safety Adminis- 2010 to 2017.
The inflators can hurl shrap- ment, are part of the larg- next year. tration. Volkswagen is recalling
nel into drivers and pas- est series of automotive Takata used the chemical Many of the recalls are lim- 119,394 vehicles, including
sengers. At least 23 people recalls in U.S. history. About ammonium nitrate to cre- ited to specific geographic Audi and Passat models
have died from the prob- 10 million inflators are being ate a small explosion to in- regions in the U.S. Owners from 2015 to 2017. BMW is
lem worldwide and hun- recalled in the U.S. this year, flate the air bags. But the can check to see if their ve- recalling 266,044 vehicles
dreds more were injured. with as many as 70 million chemical can deteriorate hicles have been recalled from 2000 to 2004 model
The moves, announced to be recalled by the time over time due to high hu- by going to https://www. years and the 2007 to 2015
Friday by the U.S. govern- the whole mess ends late midity and cycles from hot nhtsa.gov/recalls and key- model years.q