Checkers' smart trolleys are steering shopping into a new era

Designed for speed and ease, the Xpress Trolley uses self-checkout to save shoppers time. By Kara le Roux

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At Checkers Hyper in Brackenfell, trolleys sparkle under fluorescent lights like turquoise cattle. To the left of the entrance sits a smaller herd of impostors with screens bolted to their frames.

This is the Xpress Trolley, South Africa's first smart cart, which has stirred up national curiosity since its launch last week.

Neil Schreuder, chief strategy innovation officer at the Shoprite Group, said the pilot allows them “to reimagine the in-store journey using technology for a more frictionless shopping experience”. It’s a machine built to change the way people shop, signalling where Checkers, and the retail industry, intends to steer next.

The Xpress Trolley plugs into Shoprite's bigger play, where stores, apps and customer data all fuse into a single retail web.

The same tech that frees shoppers from checkout queues could turbocharge Checkers Sixty60's pickers. Faster order fulfilments mean faster deliveries — and loyal customers.

Aheesh Singh, chief investment officer at MP9 Asset Management, sees competition on the horizon. “If it works at Checkers, it puts pressure on competitors to accelerate their own self-service solutions. Shoprite has already implemented self-checkout in its Uniq clothing stores, giving it an early mover advantage in South Africa. The trolley is the logical next step in that evolution.”

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