If you're planning to shop on Black Friday, you may want to check out a cashierless store. Sam's Club, a digital-led warehouse membership group, partnered with Allyson Felix and Usain Bolt, to promote its updated proprietary technology "Scan and Go."
Scan and Go lets shoppers keep track of items they want to purchase and skip the checkout line at Sam's Club, a division of Walmart ($WMT). Cashierless stores were popularized by Amazon Go stores, but the tech company isn't the only player.
"One thing we know in retail is that people want to do two things: they want to save time and they want to save money," Tony Rogers, senior vice president for Sam's Club, told Cheddar.
"In general, what we're trying to do is eliminate friction," he said, touting the speed of the experience. "We wanted to talk about it, and we thought … who exemplifies speed better than Usain Bolt and Allyson Felix?"
The store began using scanning technology a few years ago, but has been updating the software, including adding the ability to scan the entire item instead of just the barcode, which could potentially save more than five seconds on each item.
Sam's Club opened its first cashierless store in Dallas last year.
Rogers said the company is focused on implementing and continuing to update its scanning technology, and that the company may be interested in licensing its technology in the future.
"Inside the company, there's a real tech vibe," he said.
It might feel like the artificial intelligence train has left the station, but there are still opportunities to get in before the boom gets even bigger.
Nevada’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on ghost guns Thursday, overturning a lower court’s ruling that had sided with a gun manufacturer’s argument the 2021 law regulating firearm parts with no serial numbers was unconstitutionally vague.
