BigBasket plans cashless, cashierless stores in Bengaluru – Times of India

BENGALURU: Lineless, cashless and cashierless stores are coming close to you. Online grocery BigBasket is planning to roll out unmanned convenience stores in Bengaluru sometime early next year as part of a pilot project that seeks to replicate an Amazon Go-like shopping experience.
The plan is to have 10 such stores to begin with. Each store will have half a dozen self-service scales. Computer vision and AI will be used to understand the items you have bought and the amount you have to pay. All payments will be through digital modes.
The project is being overseen by CTO Rakshit Daga’s office. Sources told TOI that they have identified store locations. The pilot project will have vegetables, fruits and some packaged items.
BigBasket declined to comment on the development. TOI has learnt that it’s in discussion with some tech vendors to implement the project. One of these is Ascendum, a US and Bengaluru-based company with 1,800 employees globally. An email sent to Ascendum did not elicit a response.
Amazon Go’s Just Walk Out technology detects products customers pick from shelves and tracks them through a virtual cart. Amazon Go uses a combination of machine learning, computer vision, AI and sensor fusion technologies, much like those used in self-driving cars.
However, BigBasket’s technology, sources said, would be more like the way Walmart has leveraged Malong Tech’s RetailAI Fresh technology in China. This has a single camera and GPU at the backend for computation with a one-click screen experience. Customers place the bagged items on the scale, and then the system identifies products with a single click.
BigBasket’s annualised gross sale run-rate crossed $1 billion in May. The company’s operations have expanded to 30 cities in India, recording about 20 million customer orders per month. The pandemic has given the business a big boost, like for other etailers. TOI recently reported that the Tata Group is exploring buying a large stake in BigBasket.