What if customers don't go to the store? You bring the store to them—driverless.
Stop & Shop, the chain of supermarkets that operates 132 stores in Massachusetts, is launching self-driving grocery vehicles in the Greater Boston area in the spring of 2019.
Anytime customers need groceries they will summon a vehicle with a smartphone app, and the car - dum da-da dum - will appear at their curb bringing fruit, veggies, bread, milk and meal kits.
The vehicles’ RFID and computer vision technology will automatically record what customers select, emailing receipts within seconds. The checkout-free experience - similar to Amazon Go's cashier-less stores - will only require customers to open and close the vehicle's doors, pick up the goods and send the car on its way.
The vehicles, which are approximately 12' long and a little under 6' high, are a creation of a San Francisco-based startup Robomart, a seed-stage company founded in 2017. Stop & Shop reached out to Robomart after its debut at CES 2018, a spokesperson for Stop & Shop wrote in an email.
All Robomart vehicles are autonomous, electric and equipped with a proprietary cooling and temperature control system, a.k.a. fridge. Classified as low speed vehicles, they have a top speed of 25mph. As such, they will not drive on highways and will be able to drive on roads with speeds posted at 35mph or less—remotely piloted from a Robomart facility.
To summon a driverless store, customers will need to use the Robomart app.
Specific locations and routes in which the service will be available, its starting date and the total number of Robomart vehicles that will hit the road are still being finalized, Stop & Shop said. Also, pricing information will be released at a later date.
Image provided.
