Stores that go to you and do not have employees: ideas that seek to revolutionize the way we buy

Imagine that you get tired and hungry from a concert late at night and remember that you have nothing to eat in your refrigerator ... do not despair.
In the new world of retail, this situation will not necessarily lead you to the nearest supermarket that is still open. Instead, the store can come to you.
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With just pressing a button of an application, an electric vehicle with little load will appear, which will slide silently in a nearby parking space.
You will enter the store by sliding your mobile phone through the door, pick up your merchandise and slide it again. There will be no cashiers, no sales assistants or anyone to clean up if you drop a carton of milk.
The Moby Mart is a new futuristic invention that has had its first test in the streets of Shanghai. The software is not yet operational and, sometimes, this beta version needs a hand to keep it moving.
But the concept is there, says the team behind the idea, the Swedish company Wheelys in collaboration with the Hefei University of Technology in China.
Moby Mart, the stores without employees that move to the client
And it is as simple as predicting a future in which everyone, from large retailers to small communities, will use their own mobile and automatic supermarket.
Bo Wu, the technology director of Moby Mart, believes that we are on the cusp of "a great revolution" in the retail sector.
If we take into account the development in automotive vehicles, mobile payments, data analysis and wireless product labeling, there is great potential to review the shopping experience.
But although it is the kind of technology that is being tested on the ground, given the interest of traditional chains, department stores and shopping centers, the experiment is still in its early stages.There are many obstacles still to be overcome before this automatic store becomes a reality and not only are they linked to the restrictions of the vehicles without drivers.So far, two Moby Marts have been sold, which the company expects to be up and running by early next year.
But other new retail models are being implemented quickly.
The human touch
People, when they market, talk about time, catch up, share stories and gossip while taking a moment to decide what they are going to wear.
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But the increase in online shopping has changed the way we buy.
And is that people tend to be more comfortable with digital purchases and value their convenience, speed, low prices and ability to find products of their choice.Global giants like Amazon and Alibaba seduce customers. But because many people still enjoy going to physical stores, retailers, inside and outside the Internet world, are realizing that the key to success lies in how to offer the best of all worlds: the real and the digital.Maybe that's why Amazon has decided (first with a couple of bookstores in the real world and now with the purchase of the supermarket chain Whole Food) that it is also worth having a network of bricks and cement as points of sale.
The time of physical stores, then, is not over yet. Even if it is 'a store' as we have never known it before.
Automatic stores
It is not only the creators of Moby Mart who think that the future may lie in making shopping an experience completely free of human contact.
BingoBox already has more than 150 static automatic stores that operate in China and estimates that there will be thousands more in the coming months.
Each of them only has ten square meters of space, provided with a variety of products, from fresh salads to condoms and umbrellas.
Customers slide their mobile phone to enter and scan each item and the account is settled through an online payment system.An assistant is available through a video link if necessary.
All this means that you only need a team of four people to run 40 stores, according to the company, which significantly reduces the investment.
In July, China's online sales giant, Alibaba, also experimented with the idea: the launch of Tao Café, a cashless coffee shop that uses facial recognition to identify the buyer who can choose the foods he would like to eat and pay for. With his phone."For Alibaba, the Tao Café was another way to explore how to eliminate the obstacles and costs to bring the experiences of physical and online shopping," explains the group's general manager in Europe, Terry von Bibra.
"The idea was simply to try the feeling of how easy I can make the purchase for a consumer easier."
In fact, Chinese companies go ahead with the concept of store without cash.
Amazon, known for revolutionizing industries, from books to electronics, opened Go in 2016, a quirky store near its headquarters in Seattle.


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It has no staff and goes one step beyond BingoBox by also eliminating the payment.
Customers enter, scan their mobile to register their arrival and then drop the products directly into their purse. When they leave the store, the sensors recognize what they have taken and the payment is charged through their Amazon account.
The idea was simply to try the feeling of how easy I can make it easier for a consumer to buy
Terry von Bibra, General Manager of Alibaba in Europe
The store only works for Amazon staff and no plans have been announced for its future opening to the public.
"Amazon has had initial problems with Amazon Go," says Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.
This will be the first Amazon food store where you will not need money or go through a box to take the products
"I did not recognize what customers were taking when they were placing new products on the shelves and not when there are too many people in the store," he explains.
But while the new world of cashless shopping will not be tomorrow, Saunders believes it will come, as retailers are looking for ways to reduce costs to compete with the low prices of online products.But the trend is unlikely to extend beyond purchases, he says.
On the shelves of the markets of Hema it is enough to pass the telephone to know the data of the product.
Image caption
On the shelves of the markets of Hema it is enough to pass the telephone to know the data of the product.
Magic mirror
The French cosmetics chain Sephora, which has stores in several continents, is also blurring the line between physical stores and online.
"The whole industry is going to be shaped by digital knowledge and this will also be a fantastic way for us to enrich what is happening in the physical store," says Stephane Delva, Sephora's director of marketing for Europe and the Middle East.
Sephora uses technology to increase what he calls the "wow" factor (surprise) of purchases.
With augmented reality software, an iPad allows shoppers to try different shades of rouge, eye shadow and lipstick to help those who want to buy the products.In many aspects, the strategy seeks to catch up with what younger clients are doing, from makeup applications and online tutorials, to chat rooms and Snapchat.
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Consumers are invited to join the digital "MySephora" community where the company can track what they buy, what is discussed and what they like: it is the creation of a gold mine of useful data.
"We are very proud of what we have done, and we were the first to launch this type of personalized recommendation tool," says Delva.
Sephora
Image caption
Sephora tries to catch up with the new trends of young people.
But there are still very few Sephora stores that offer this type of experience.
The virtual reality available online and in the application of the brand is still lagging behind the version in physical stores and, sometimes, technical failures hinder what should be a perfect experience.
The whole industry is going to be shaped by digital knowledge
Stephane Delva, Marketing Director of Sephora for Europe and the Middle East.
Price, price, price
But for the success of a digital cutting edge strategy, there is a final area that should not be ignored.
And is that the most innovative influences in the retail market in recent years have not been to slide phones to make purchases, but the proven and proven formula to snatch the price from rivals.
German companies such as Aldi and Lidl offer not only food, but an eclectic and changing range of items to add to the shopping bag and at reduced prices.In fact, not content to control much of the traditional supermarkets in Europe, Lidl has recently made its first foray into the United States: the opening of 21 stores so far this year, joining Aldi which has already more than 1,600.
The food industry is already shaking with the purchase of Wholefoods by Amazon, and after Walmart announced its partnership with Google to offer purchases by voice, a simpler offer of discount stores, not digital, will add to this panorama .
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"Lidl is seen as a troubling player," says Joe Feldman, assistant research director at Telsey Advisory Group.
But the challenge for Lidl is enormous. It is still a small player and established companies are fighting against the arrival of the company.
You will have to persuade American customers to try their less expensive and unbranded lines, while controlling costs.
And by controlling the ingredients and exploiting the scale in the size of their orders, Lidl can keep the prices of its own-brand products low, explains Feldman.And this will reduce costs in all possible ways.
However, he predicts that there is something they will not do: get rid of their ATMs and dependents altogether.
"I think there's still a need to ask someone where the tomato sauce is, or where is the mustard?"