From Shopping Aids to Fully Autonomous Mobile Self-checkouts - A Field Study in Retail

Self-checkout terminals allow integrating customers as active co-producers into a retailer’s business processes. They have enjoyed increasing popularity in the past years since they allow saving costs and increasing customer satisfaction. Yet, they cannot be implemented in many retail settings, as the technology relies on retailer provided terminals and does not yet fully utilize the possibilities provided by mobile smartphones, which until recently have mostly served as decision or shopping aids. This paper presents steps towards and results from a field study of a purely mobile self-checkout solution that provides a more time efficient shopping experience to time-constrained users. We show that the time performance of app users is independent of store rush and that the time for a transaction is significantly lower for app users compared to regular shoppers during peak periods

Estudio de prefactibilidad para la Instalación de una tienda de conveniencia con tecnología de autoservicio

El presente plan de investigación propone la instalación de una tienda de conveniencia con tecnologías de autoservicio, cuya propuesta de valor consiste en mejorar la experiencia de compra. El servicio tendrá como canal de compra un aplicativo móvil, con el que podrán escanear los productos deseados y realizar los pagos sin necesidad de hacer colas. En el capítulo I: Aspectos generales, se describe la problemática actual y se plantean los objetivos, hipótesis, marco conceptual y referencial de la investigación. En el capítulo II se realiza el estudio de mercado, el cual implica describir el servicio, segmentar el mercado objetivo, analizar la oferta actual, y definir el mix de marketing. La ubicación óptima del proyecto se determina en el capítulo III: Localización del servicio, aplicando el método de Brown & Gibson, el cual consiste en analizar y comparar los factores subjetivos y objetivos más relevantes para el proyecto. Se concluye que la localización óptima es el distrito de San Isidro, tentativamente en la Avenida Rivera Navarrete. El capítulo IV: Dimensionamiento del Servicio determina que el factor limitante del servicio es el mercado, el cual asciende a S/ 2 539 273 al año. El capítulo V: Ingeniería del proyecto presenta el plano de la tienda; para ello se describe la tecnología, los equipos, muebles, enseres, personal y servicios necesarios para desarrollar el servicio. Se define además que el factor limitante del servicio es el metraje de la tienda, el cual permite un aforo de 13 personas. Con ello, se estima que la capacidad anual de atención de la tienda es de 616 512 personas al año. Otrostemas a desarrollar en el capítulo son la medición de la calidad, la seguridad, el mantenimiento, el impacto ambiental, entre otros. Los puestos de trabajo, sus funciones y la estructura organizacional se definen en el capítulo VI: Organización Administrativa, dividiéndose en personal administrativo y personal de contacto. El capítulo VII: Presupuestos y Evaluación del Proyecto presenta una estimación de los costos involucrados en la apertura y funcionamiento del servicio; entre ellos, los activos tangibles, intangibles, capital de trabajo, costos y gastos de operación. Además, se proyectan los flujos económico y financiero, así como los indicadores principales de viabilidad financiera (VAN, TIR, B/C y periodo de recupero). Finalmente, en el capítulo VIII: Evaluación Social del proyecto se calculan e interpretan los indicadores sociales de empleabilidad y rendimiento del capital.This research plan proposes the installation of a convenience store with self-service technologies in which its value offer is in the improvement of the customer's shopping experience through the use of a mobile application with which they can select and Cancel the desired products without losing time in queues. In Chapter I: General aspects, the current problem will be described and the objectives of the project will be raised. The work hypothesis will also be raised, and the conceptual and theoretical framework will be worked with secondary sources. In Chapter II: Market Research, the proposed service will be described and the market segmentation in which the people of the San Isidro district in metropolitan Lima of socioeconomic level A and B who are between 18 and 55 years. In addition, an analysis of the current offer in the country will be made and the marketing mix will be defined. In Chapter III: Location of the service, the Brown & Gibson methodology will be developed to determine the optimal location of the service. The most relevant subjective and objective factors are selected for the project. After evaluating these factors, it is concluded that the optimal location is the district of San Isidro, choosing Rivera Navarrete Avenue as the tentative location of the convenience store. In Chapter IV: Sizing of the Service, it is concluded that the limitation of the service is the market, which amounts to S/ 2 539 273 per year. In chapter V: Project engineering, the service plan is elaborated to schematize the service process. It also describes the technology and equipment necessary to develop the service. It is determined that the limiting factor of the store is its capacity of approximately 13 people at any given time. Because of this, the annual service capacity of the store is 616 512 people per year. Other topics to be developed in the chapter will be the measurement of quality, safety, maintenance, plant layout and other requirements. In Chapter VI: Administrative Organization, the positions and functions of the workers who develop their activities in the convenience store are structured and defined. These are divided into administrative and contact personnel. Chapter VII: Budgets and Project Evaluation, evaluates all the costs involved for the kick-off of the business, the total investment required, tangible and intangible assets, working capital, costs and operating expenses will be estimated. Once determined, the economic and financial flows in which positive results were obtained that support the profitability of the proposed service will be prepared. Finally, in Chapter VIII: Social Evaluation of the project, the social indicators will be interpreted one by one