Amazon Fresh rival Imagr opens London popup venue

Imagr has opened up a temporary popup store located on London’s famed Oxford Street to demonstrate its technology.

The space invites customers, tech experts and press to trial its range of smart carts and imaging stations.

The New Zealand-based startup has said it has had large interest in its tech from the UK’s retail market after Amazon moved into the space with its autonomous stores, with six of the UK’s top supermarket retailers coming through the popup.

Imagr markets itself as a white-label autonomous checkout solution that retailers can own, operate and scale themselves.

READ MORE: Amazon Fresh cashierless rival Imagr eyes share in UK grocery market

The tech used it similar to that of Amazon Fresh’s, customers drop items into shopping carts with cameras where items are automatically scanned and can be paid for via smartphone apps linked to the cart.

“We wanted to be the first autonomous retailer to offer a popup store, and we believe we have achieved that,” Imagr chief executive William Chomley said.

“The retail market in the UK and Europe is extensive and has huge potential for automation, especially in the face of Covid-19.




“With Amazon Go (Amazon Fresh) recently entering the UK and four stores already open, UK grocery retailers need to act fast to keep up with the changing landscape.”

A spokesperson told Retail Tech Innovation Hub: “Our system was well received and we have some strong interest to move forward with a UK retailer in the coming months.”

“It was pretty clear that Amazon Go’s growing presence in the UK is putting some pressure on retailers to improve customer experience and automate the checkout.

“Overhead solutions aren’t scalable across all formats of stores, they are hugely expensive to implement and maintain and they cause major issues with privacy.

“Retailers see smart carts as a way to get all the benefits of automating the checkout with computer vision without putting their customers’ privacy at risk.”

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