New staffless retail store launched in China

Written by Chris Lemmon

16/06/2017

A new mobile convenience store has launched in China that is completely staffless, “turning every parking space in the world into a potential new 24-hour store”.

Named Moby Mart, the store offers products for immediate consumption, such as milk, lunch, or medicine over the counter, around the clock. Customers simply enter the store, take what they need. Items such as computers, light bulbs can be ordered in advance and picked up at the nearest Moby Mart.

Through use of AI, patented inventions, and the cloud, the Moby Mart aims to create the simplest shopping experience for customers. The new store will feature similar technologies to that of Amazon Go stores, which enable customers to just walk out of the store without a checkout system through computer vision, sensor function and deep learning.

Running on electricity and equipped with solar panels the Moby is also billed as the most environmentally friendly store on the market, and includes an integrated air purifier.

Developed by Swedish firm Wheelys in co-operation with Hefei University and Himalafy, the solution is currently being beta tested in Shanghai.