FairPrice to roll out over 1,300 smart trolleys at 48 stores in 2026

Smart Cart among more than 60 digital solutions that supermarket chain is trialling

- Sarah Koh

A customer scanning an item using a Smart Cart at the FairPrice Finest in Punggol Coast Mall on April 20. Since the trial at the store began in 2025, shoppers have reported faster check-out times of 36 seconds on average.

(ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH)

After a successful trial in Punggol, smart trolleys that allow FairPrice shoppers to skip snaking queues and check out items anywhere inside stores are now going places.

More than 1,300 of these will be deployed in 48 FairPrice Finest and Xtra stores – including in VivoCity, Jewel Changi Airport, Nex, Junction 8 and Bedok Mall - by the end of 2026.

These are the larger outlets where customers are more likely to need a trolley to navigate the aisles, and they make up about a quarter of FairPrice’s 169 supermarkets in Singapore.

The Smart Cart initiative was launched to alleviate key friction points in a customer’s shopping journey, said FairPrice Group’s chief digital and technology officer Dennis Seah. He announced this at Google Cloud Next 2026, held in Las Vegas, on April 23.

The friction points include queueing at physical checkout counters and seeking help to locate products and promotional items.

Users from the pilot in Punggol validated the approach, saying the guided navigation provided by the builtin touchscreen on the Smart Carts and recommendations displayed on screen were useful. Recommendations and promotion alerts are tailored based on shoppers’ past purchases.

Shoppers must unlock the carts with the Pay/Earn QR code on the FairPrice app.