The Rise of Smart Carts

Dear existing and future customers,

Yesterday, Amazon announced that they will be implementing smart carts at their newest grocery store. After years of pursuing expensive full-store implementations for cashierless transactions, this strategic shift shows that Amazon has come to realize what we’ve known all along as the first-mover and market leader in smart cart technology.

Four years ago, we had an idea to build the world’s first checkout-free grocery store. We hit the pavement and visited 150 grocery stores to answer one question: “how can we build something that store owners & operators really want?” After extensive research, we learned the key challenge was to build something truly scalable with a clear return on investment while minimizing disruptions to store operations. Grocers expressed their demands in the simplest of terms. They wanted “something that just works like magic.”

In 2017, Caper launched the world’s first AI-powered smart cart: the Caper Cart. And it was indeed just what grocers demanded ⁠— “something that just works like magic.” The Caper Cart allows for a plug-and-play deployment in retail stores. No store renovation or complicated infrastructure overhaul required; just integrate and launch.

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Over the years, we have made continuous improvements to maintain our lead in the industry, while always keeping retailers’ requirements in mind.  Caper’s intuitive interface, reliable hardware, and clean integrations, help independent stores stay competitive and evolve in an ever-changing retail environment.

Our collaborations with both large enterprises and small businesses have crystalized our knowledge of the complexities of the retail industry. Real-world experience has been distilled into pragmatic technology that took time to perfect. We bring our customers far more than just technology:

• Data privacy: Caper is committed to protecting retailer’s data, with no conflict of interest to leverage retailer inventory or pricing information, for purposes apart from enabling a checkout-less store
• Demo to production: Going from a demo environment to a production environment is a whole different challenge. Shopper behavior is complex, and it is necessary to account for all possible corner-cases such as cart durability, network stability, age verification, POS integration, and more
• System integration: To make Smart Carts work with a store’s current infrastructure, a POS integration is required. It takes months of work to understand the underlying system logic. We have done this with countless POS systems across different organizations, and have made the often-painful task of integration a breeze
• Weights and measures: We have a patent-protected scale mechanism that is certified by the Weights and Measures department after extensive testing. It is required to launch Smart Carts in a grocery environment, and we are pleased to be the first and only scale-vehicle that is approved by several countries around the world
• Cost considerations: We have partnered with some of the largest manufacturers in the world with the goal of making the latest technology cost-effective and ROI-positive for our customers
• Ongoing support: Our hardware has been in deployment in production for 2+ years, and we have gone through countless iterations to improve our hardware longevity. We have the capability to provide support at scale
• All-in: Last but not least, automated checkout is our only line of business - not a side project - and we are all-in. We have held firm to our vision. We are committed to staying ahead of the market to bring the most innovative and cost-effective products to our clients

To our current partners and Caper Cart users, this is a very exciting time as we fast forward to the future of physical shopping. The retail landscape is ever-evolving, and consumer demands continue to shift towards digitized seamless experiences. Caper is honored to work alongside our retail partners to unleash the full potential of technology within your physical retail environments. As for retailers who are seeking more information, we welcome you to contact us at hello@caper.ai. We look forward to sharing how we can bring a magical shopping experience to your stores.

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