Caper Rolls Out AI-Powered Shopping Carts That Let Customers Skip Checkout

Brooklyn, NY /PRNewswire/ - Grocery store customers want speed and convenience, but grocery stores often have long checkout lines which hurt the shopping experience. As they seek to maintain competitiveness in a world where groceries can be ordered online, forward-thinking grocers are trying to make the store experience as convenient and frictionless as possible. There have been some innovations in physical retail, specifically in automating the checkout experience. However, many of these technologies require major store overhaul (e.g., install cameras and sensors throughout a store) and grocers saw such operational and infrastructural change as unreasonable risk to their regular business.

Caper is the first AI-powered shopping cart that, using computer vision, lets grocery shoppers skip checkout lines. Shoppers can simply throw items into their Caper cart, and built-in sensors identify the items and tally a virtual basket. During the shopping journey, Caper helps shoppers discover in-store deals with its interactive screen. Once done, they can conveniently pay on the cart and leave the store.

Caper's AI-powered shopping cart is a plug-and-play solution - no installation is required and no operational restructuring is needed. Store owners can put Caper carts in their stores and enable an automated checkout experience that complements their existing business. The Caper carts are live in 2 grocery chains, and have plans to roll out to 150 more in 2019. Caper is not a technology that only exists within a concept store.

The current launched version of Caper's cart requires barcode scanning of each item on the cart - and it has already become the go-to technology for shoppers. Caper is leveraging the captured item image and the scanned item barcode to help train its deep learning algorithm and enable the scan-less drop-and-go experience. Caper not only streamlines checkout, but it also provides an interface to interact with shoppers and provide revenue driving opportunities for grocers with tailored recommendations designed to increase basket size. In its launched stores, Caper has been able to increase average basket size by 18% by giving customers exposure to products they may overlook or unable to find.

Caper has raised about $3.5M to date from First Round Capital, Y Combinator, and a number of notable angels in the grocery industry such as Nick Taranto (Cofounder of Plated) and Max Mullen (Cofounder of Instacart).