According to the official website of the 711 convenience store shows that a few days ago, 7-Eleven opened five X-Store convenience stores in Taiwan, focusing on the “take it and go (Grab and Go)” experience, there are a number of sensors in the store to track the information of the goods that the customer takes, the customer out of the door can be automatically checked out.
▲ Photo source: 7-Eleven official website
It is said that customers need to scan the QR code on the gate with their phones and then enter the convenience store after verification. After entering the store, multiple cameras installed on the ceiling are able to automatically recognize customers’ hand movements based on AI and automatically categorize multiple customers’ instant behaviors.
▲ Photo source: 7-Eleven official website
According to 711, the system also supports the scenario of “entering the store together with others”, which means that when an adult and a child go to the convenience store to buy goods, the system can combine the goods picked up by the adult and the child in the same “shopping cart”, and then proceed to the checkout in a unified way.
To ensure accuracy, the shelves are also equipped with cameras, infrared detectors, and weight detectors to provide redundant calculations to compensate for the shortcomings of AI recognition.
▲ Figure source 7-Eleven Official website
In addition, these X-Store convenience stores are equipped with robotic customer service based on ChatGPT technology, so customers can ask them questions when shopping for products, and if the robotic customer service can’t satisfy the customer’s request, they can also call human customer service to deal with it.
▲ Figure source 7-Eleven Official website
The IT home noted that the cost of unmanned convenience stores from the deployment to the cost of maintenance, compared to manually operated convenience stores, the advantage is not obvious, more is in the “show technology” or “create a conceptual image”. Before 711 launched the X-Store convenience store, in fact, there are many companies also launched unmanned convenience stores but ultimately did not cause much of a ripple.
