The idea of a store that works without salespeople and cashiers can surprise many people. It seems that such a point of sale runs the risk of going broke due to theft. However, such shops have long been a common thing for Scandinavians. And recently, their modern version is being introduced in Russia.
Northern exotic
The southern regions of Norway may not seem very interesting to the spoiled tourist. There are mainly fields and pastures for livestock, which are occasionally interspersed with modest farmers' houses. Hardworking villagers spend whole days at work, and often they have no time to take milk or vegetables to the nearest town. In this regard, they came up with a simple way to realize the fruits of their labor, calculated on the honesty of visiting buyers.
The Norwegian Country Shop is a small one-story building by the side of the road. Inside there are shelves, on the shelves of which jars of jam, bottles of milk, boxes of chicken eggs are neatly placed. Below there are boxes of vegetables, meat and poultry in the refrigerator. Often there is also a hanger with children's clothes, hand-made by farmers from the wool of domestic sheep. Each product has a price tag attached, and a special table has a scale and a calculator. All that remains for the guest of the store is to calculate the value of his purchase and put the money in the bowl. Nearby - a bowl with a change for change. Every morning, the owners update the windows and collect the proceeds.
This approach surprises random people, but locals are used to trusting each other and doing business honestly. This type of trade is taking root in China, but so far on a smaller scale.
Russian technologies
In big cities, one cannot count on the nobility of buyers. Therefore, in Moscow, a store without sellers was organized according to a different principle. The first swallow appeared in the capital in 2013. True, it is designed only for employees of one trade network. The assortment includes more than five thousand products, and each package is marked with a special identifier. It does not need to be read by a scanner - just put the purchase in the basket. In ten seconds, information about the cost, weight, as well as the route of the goods from the manufacturer to the warehouse and showcase will be ready. Then the basket is passed through the terminal, where payment is made using a plastic card or cash.
In the summer of 2014, another company's robotic shopping pavilion opened in Moscow to the general public. The store is small, accommodating up to 200-300 names of products and household chemicals. Here you can buy drinks, cereals, canned food, pasta, ready-made sauces, personal hygiene items and more. And so that snacks and confectionery products in the display cases do not deteriorate, the pavilion is constantly cooled to five degrees above zero. Taking into account Russian realities, the developers took care of the safety of the goods. Anti-vandal glass is inserted into the windows, and the purchase process is monitored by surveillance cameras around the clock.
