Raleigh, NC, Dec. 7, 2021— GK, a global leader in omnichannel retail, today announced that with the opening of the first scanless store for the employees at the headquarters in Schöneck, GK is ushering in the era of completely contactless shopping.
The store allows shoppers to check in, take items, and just walk out or pay on their phone. Multiple shoppers can use the store at the same time with no need to scan items or wait in line to pay. Shoppers don’t have to look at their phone while they shop. However, they can choose to check their app to see basket content, item information, price, promotion, coupons redemption, etc., at any point during their time at the store.
The GK Go store is using GK CLOUD4RETAIL’s new service GK Go, which orchestrates CLOUD4RETAIL services to enable a consistent, flexible flow with real-time shopper interaction throughout the shopping journey, Shekel Product Aware shelves, which recognize the products taken off the shelves, and Hitachi’s 3D LiDARs, which associates the items to the relevant shopper.
GK’s CLOUD4RETAIL platform enables flexible journeys and a variety of customer touchpoints, even in a scan-less shopping journey. As a result, GK Go can be used autonomously or staffed, in a container or as a full store. For example, in addition to pre-authorized ‘just walk out’ technology, retailers can choose to allow card or cash payment at a payment tower, payment on consumers’ mobile phone and even payment at a staffed checkout.
With this technology, consumers can easily see all relevant information about their basket in the app as they are shopping, including items, price, additional item info, total cost so far, and promotions and coupons that have been redeemed. Furthermore, they can opt in for real-time relevant offers and get a hyper-personalized experience with offers based on their preferences, basket content, shopping history, location in the store and additional attributes using GK AI for Retail.
“Consumers want to see information that is relevant to them as they shop, regardless of the channel or format,” said Orit Bar-Ad, portfolio director at GK. “Scanless should mean a great experience with fewer tasks for the shopper, whilst retaining flexibility and improving interaction. It should remove friction and should take retailers forward in their interaction with consumers as they shop.
“This was a leading principle in GK Go — a consumer can take items and just walk out, but they can also see what’s in their basket, how much they are being charged, view promotions deployed, and more, at any point while shopping. As well, they can choose other ways to check out, in addition to being able to just walk out. This is achieved due to our real-time interaction, and the new services being an integral part of our unified commerce platform.
“Various technologies can be used to provide the item and consumer events used by our new GK Go service. We are currently working in partnership with Hitachi Smart Spaces solutions 3D Lidar Sensors and Shekel LTD Product Aware Technology to provide high accuracy, reduced GDPR impact (no images of the consumer), reduced environment and lighting dependency, and outstanding real-time events performance, enabling GK Go to provide a superior shopping experience.”
“We are excited to partner with GK and provide Hitachi Smart Spaces solutions in its staff store to enable a seamless, automated shopping experience,” said Christian Dornacher, director, Smart Spaces and Lumada Video Insights at Hitachi Vantara. “As the future of retail includes more touchless experiences, we recognize that protecting customer privacy is crucial. With our Lidar-based technology, we can provide a seamless, non-invasive experience that protects shoppers’ personal information and delights patrons with a truly autonomous grab and go retail environment.”
“We are excited and honored to provide our Product Aware technology to the ground-breaking GK Go store,” said Rami Bahar, Chief Business Development Officer at Shekel. “Converting Shekel’s world-class load cells into AI-powered IoT sensors enables us to recognize products in a blink and at the highest accuracy, while maintaining lowest cost of ownership and unrivaled reliability.”
The GK Go store is also using a Blue Fire gate from Pan Oston and the latest version of electronic shelf labels from Hanshow, its Nebular series, which allow remote updating of prices, dynamic pricing, and more. All of this combines to provide more efficient operations for retailers, especially in autonomous environments, and a better shopping experience for customers.
About GK
GK breaks down the barriers to unified commerce with its OmniPOS solution for point of sale, mobile POS, mobile customer engagement, forecourt management, payments and a full range of store/back-office solutions. The company is a recognized leader in omni-channel retail, offering a single, global software platform for all retail formats and touchpoints. Ten of the Top 50 retailers worldwide rely on GK, and GK is the fastest growing global POS provider in new installations. For more information, visit www.gk-software.com.
About Shekel
Shekel– Doing Magic with Gravity
Shekel is the forefront of the digital weighing industry for the past four decades. Thanks to a unique combination of cutting-edge technology, sophisticated software, AI models, and advanced algorithms, Shekel Scales products have the proven ability to deliver not only maximum-precision weighing solutions but also product recognition and indicative solutions for a wide range of industries, from retail and medicine to science and security. Shekel strives to help our partners achieve their goals and better serve their customers and improve the lives of millions around the world.
With years of experience and countless success stories, our motivation to maintain Shekel as leaders in the digital weighing industry remained embedded and defined by our basic principle; to always put our customers in the center of everything we do. Our magical blend of years of advanced thought leadership alongside an innovative entrepreneurial mindset is what drives our team to continue and develop differentiating technology, and that is Shekel empowered gravity. Shekel’s patented combination of weighing technology with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technology led to the development of its “Product Aware Technology”. Shekel is committed to continuing to innovate and expand into global markets.
To learn more about Shekel, visit www.shekelbrainweigh.com
About Hitachi Vantara
Hitachi Vantara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., guides our customers from what’s now to what’s next by solving their digital challenges. Working alongside each customer, we apply our unmatched industrial and digital capabilities to their data and applications to benefit both business and society. More than 80% of the Fortune 100 trust Hitachi Vantara to help them develop new revenue streams, unlock competitive advantages, lower costs, enhance customer experiences, and deliver social and environmental value.
Visit us at www.hitachivantara.com
About Hanshow
Hanshow delivers digital solutions for retailers to improve efficiency, profitability, and sustainability. From award-winning electronic shelf labels to in-store marketing screens and AI-powered monitoring solutions, Hanshow currently serves over 20,000 stores in more than 50 countries.
Learn more at www.hanshow.com
Media Contacts
Jenny Bradford
Ketner Group Communications (for GK Software)