Case Study

US grocery retail reduces OTC losses and boosts profits

THE CASE

A top US-based grocery chain with over 300 stores nationally wanted to reduce inventory loss at the point of sale (POS) caused by the non-scanning of items during checkout.

CHALLENGE

The client reported a loss of $1 billion attributed to POS inventory loss, either through customers failing to remove products from the cart at POS. For example, cashiers dealing with lines of customers could not correctly detect unscanned inventory being taken from the store. Also, employees at the cash register would give away items to a “sweetheart” customer, such as a friend or family member or co-workers, through scan avoidance. Our client needed an easily deployable solution to address these challenges in real-time without interfering with customer shopping experiences.

SOLUTION

UST VisionBox was integrated through a one plug deployment with the existing CCTV cameras near checkouts to automatically scan the bottom of the basket every time that a shopping cart passed through the checkout counter. UST trained video to detect objects left behind in a cart, immediately sending signals to the AI engine connected with the POS software, flagging the issue and displaying the unchecked item image to the cashier at the POS counter and/or supervisors in real-time. To combat sweethearting, store managers received image-based evidentiary alerts and identification of repeat offenders.

IMPACT

This national grocery chain company realized a return on its investment almost immediately. UST VisionBox helped them gain an 80% reduction in over-the-counter losses and boosted profits per lane per day by up to 10%. It also improved throughput and front-end efficiency with cashier compliance while ensuring complete data privacy.

RESOURCES

Learn more about UST's Retail & CPG services