In this interview, Riad Beladi speaks with Nico Müller about Shopreme’s journey to becoming a leader in the self-checkout industry. Nico shares insights into how Shopreme has established itself as a trusted provider of self-checkout solutions, having already supplied major retailers like Aldi and others. Their experience and commitment to innovation have positioned Shopreme at the forefront of this rapidly growing market, helping retailers enhance customer experience and operational efficiency.
Can you share the story of shopreme and its journey to becoming a world leader in self-checkout solutions?
shopreme started with the vision of challenging the status quo in brick & mortar retail back in 2015 by bringing mobile self-checkout and plenty of experience in e-commerce together. Shortly after our first customer BILLA, Austria’s biggest retailer, started working with us, the XXXLutz Group subsidiaries Möbelix and Mömax followed.
With the strategic investment of Umdasch Group Ventures we scaled up the business and created the shopreme vector exit hardware to improve the journey further by adding clarity in the checkout process for customers and employees in the stores. Since then, shopreme is now working with international retailers such as ALDI, Auchan Retail, Rossmann and many others and have established us as the leading Mobile Scan & Go provider and innovation leader in Self-Checkout.
What are the key features and innovations that distinguish shopreme’s self-checkout solutions from others in the market?
shopreme provides a turnkey whitelabel self-checkout solution with a single integration to the retailer POS system. Our solution is proven and currently live in over 1500 retail stores and achieves the highest adoption rates in the market.
With remote and biometric age verification, digital invoice and our shopreme sentry loss prevention system, we are the innovation leader in the market, always working on new ways of improving the customers’ shopping experience.
How has the adoption of self-checkout solutions evolved in the retail sector, particularly in supermarkets?
While Scan & Go is a very smooth checkout experience, it is invisible technology after all. Marketing or the introduction of the shopreme vector is therefore important so that customers are actually aware of this way of checking out. We do consult our retail partners with the experience gathered in many projects over the years in this regard. The adoption rates vary on the selected checkout setup, but we are always far beyond low industry average and achieve between 4 and 15% adoption rates when mobile payment, a fast lane with shopreme vector and a small amount of marketing. It is key to get the associates in the store onboard so they can be multipliers for these self-checkout solutions. With the shopreme matrix and scan & go combined we achieve adoption rates of over 50% of the overall transactions.
What feedback have you received from retailers and customers regarding the implementation of shopreme’s self-checkout systems?
The feedback we’re getting is both overwhelmingly positive and very constructive. We see all stakeholders as our customers. Developers with our developer portal, staff in stores with material and easy to use apps, business intelligence with easy to generate reports and marketing with a lot of existing material for use and modification. Ultimately, a practical solution needs to be appealing to all stakeholders involved.
We see that the work and love for detail we invest pays off, because 91% of or first-time users come back. One of our main goals is to make our solution as easy to use as possible – We’ve seen a 92-year-old lady use it flawlessly with our own eyes on of our visits at a store of one of our customers. Seeing things like that simply gives you great pride in your work.
How does shopreme address security and fraud prevention in its self-checkout solutions? Using self-checkout raises the question of loss prevention and theft, which is indeed an industry wide challenge. To tackle the issue, we’ve come up with an AI-based solution. Our AI model uses data based on previous transactions and recommends spot checks based on that. The longer the model learns, the better and more accurate it becomes. That way, we’re increasing security without any negative psychological side effects, like for example cameras would.
This in combination with a rule-based system we provide security in the self-checkout journey while providing clarity to customers and employees in an effective manner. As a side effect our supervisor app can also be used for remote age verifications and other instore business processes to further improve the business case.
Can you provide insights into the integration process of shopreme’s self-checkout systems with existing retail infrastructures?
Importing the product and price information and clearing of transaction requires a single integration that can be extended by loyalty and much more. All products work immediately after integration, so you can directly start with mobile scan & go and the supervisor app. And if at any point in time a retailer considers replacing or introducing self-checkout kiosks, the shopreme matrix is ready to go, being based on the same integration of the shopreme backend to the retailers POS.
Sustainability is a growing concern. How does shopreme’s technology contribute to more sustainable retail operations?
The short receipt printed by the shopreme matrix saves up to 90% paper while our digital receipt with mobile scan & go can fully replace the physical one.
By providing retailers with detailed analytics and insights, our technology further enables more efficient inventory management and supply chain operations, which can lead to reductions in waste and more sustainable business practices.
What future trends do you foresee in the self-checkout space, and how is shopreme preparing to lead in these areas?
There is a massive shortage of staff in Europe and elsewhere in the world, self-checkout is an efficient tool in tackling this issue and taking pressure off retail workers in the process. Also, customers are used to efficient online processes in e-commerce and love the convenience of Scan & Go after they’ve tried it first. Nothing beats just walking by a long queue with ease.
We are certain to see more innovative solutions popping up and follow all these development with interest and excitement as one thing is for certain and was proven after the pandemic: Brick & Mortar retail is here to stay and so is self-checkout. People love to shop with friends and family, try out products in the store or see the fruit they want to buy. And we see self-checkout will grow further, customers are used to smooth processes online and our aim is to bring all this convenience into the beautiful experience of physical stores.