Industry 4.0: Retail Automation Comes to Town
By The Edge Malaysia · Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly
First published in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 25–31, 2021.
If there is one thing that turns shoppers off, particularly those in a rush, it is the long queues at checkout. Although the business of retail has been altered in many ways, much of the enhancements so far have been focused on e-commerce infrastructure. Now, it is entering the next frontier — the automation of check-out services itself, says Lim Yee Yun, founder of Aye Solutions Sdn Bhd.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit and stringent physical distancing requirements were imposed, retailers scrambled to accommodate the changes in shopping behaviours. Lim felt there had to be a better way. Drawing from her experience in Japan — where a tap of a travel card at the metro was all it took to grab-and-go — she saw an opportunity to introduce autonomous retail solutions locally.
"When the Movement Control Order was implemented in March last year, I stopped by a pharmacy after work just before they were about to close. The queue snaked all the way across the corridor and customers were fumbling with multiple steps just to enter the store," she says. A month later, she resigned from her job and started Aye Solutions.
Aye Solutions is rolling out technology to enable unmanned retail outlets that require no dedicated app to enter or check out of a store. Customers simply tap their credit or debit card at the autogate upon entry, load their bags, and walk out. A combination of sensors, AI-powered cameras, computer vision, and deep-learning algorithms identify people, their poses, and hand positions in 3D — scalable from kiosks to large grocery stores.
Shelves are equipped with digitalised LCD bars that display and update prices automatically during sales or flash promotions. "Every time you decide to drop the price of an item, you don't need to print new labels — you just enter the new price in the back-end system," says Lim.
Aye Solutions will roll out its proof of concept store at UOA Business Park in Shah Alam. According to Allied Market Research, the retail automation segment was valued at US$11.24 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach US$23.58 billion by 2026, with Asia-Pacific exhibiting the highest CAGR of 11.5%.