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German digital platform Wirecard and telecomm company T-Systems are teaming up to create a new digital shopping cart. The app will let users draw up their shopping list at home. Once in-store, the app will take shoppers interactively through the store, directly to the items on their shopping list. A screen shows users which products on their list are already in their cart and can add personalised information and offers. Sensors are used to capture the shoppers’ route through the store. As customers chose an item they can scan it within the app. When they are finished with their shopping, customers can then pay with a single click.

In addition to helping shoppers to organise their shopping, the app allows retailers to identify customer paths and preferences while in-store. Retailers can use this data to gain valuable insights into the best locations to place individual products. The networked shopping cart combines Internet of Things technology with artificial intelligence algorithms to monitor users shopping. Alexander Hahn, Vice President POS Retail Solutions at Wirecard explains, “We are assuming that in five years’ time, the major proportion of retailers will be offering seamless checkouts and other services via apps. Successful retailers are already concentrating more on perfecting the in-store shopping experience than on actual retail transactions”. This chimes with what we have already seen at Springwise, with innovations aimed at making shopping easier. These have included an autonomous trolley and an augmented reality shopping app.

The Wirecard shopping app also highlights the way that retail payment processes are increasingly making way for fully-integrated digital payment systems. Integrating shopping and payment may be one way to allow brick-and-mortar retailers to keep pace with online retail. Will apps like this be enough to bring shoppers back in store? Or will bricks-and-mortar continue to lose out to online and delivery?