Portuguese startup Sensei has announced its entry into Italy with the opening of the country’s first autonomous supermarket.
Located in Verona, the Tuday Prendi & Vai location was inaugurated on Wednesday 8th November, offering a shopping experience with no queues, or self-scanning or checkout processes.
Sensei, whose autonomous stores can also be found in Europe and South America, has partnered with the DAO cooperative, which has been operating in the retail sector for over 60 years and is present in the provinces of Trento, Bolzano, Vicenza, and Verona, where it manages the Conad brand.
Tuday Prendi & Go (in English, Grab & Go) in Verona allows customers to enter without any barriers, pick up the products they want, and leave without the need to go to a checkout counter and/or wait in line to pay.
It also marks the debut of technological developments made by Sensei to enhance the user experience.
In addition to eliminating barriers to entry into the store, it offers people the opportunity to review their shopping cart, updated in real-time, before leaving the store. At the payment terminal, after accessing their cart, customers can choose from different payment methods and pay by card or using the Tuday – Prendi & Vai app.
Sensei’s technology also allows for a wide range of products to be sold in the store (over 3,000 references).
A highlight is variable weight products such as fresh greens, fruits, and bakery items which can be sold by weight thanks to the automatic communication between weighing scales and the store system.
There are also self-service coffee machines.
“We are very excited about Sensei’s arrival in Italy and the impact we can generate with our technology. It is a privilege to partner with DAO to open the country’s first autonomous supermarket, and we thank Alessandro Penasa for trusting us with this important project,” says Vasco Portugal, CEO, and Co-founder at Sensei.
“We are, together, writing a new page in the history of Italian retail and shaping a new era of smart and integrated shopping. We are excited to see and support such a bold vision developing and growing in the future.”
Alessandro Penasa, CEO at DAO, says: “Aware of us being a cooperative, we felt the challenge of continuing to conquer our space in the food retail market, now and in the future.”
“We have done this without giving up our vision of business and territory: local stores where the cornerstones of our being are human relationships and serving the neighbourhoods where we are located and their communities”
“With Sensei, we were able to build a store where technology is a tool for the business. They have proven to be flexible partners, proactive in adapting their 100% smart retail vision to our vision of a neighbourhood and community store, with all its peculiarities. We hope to share similar successes together.”
“We are now embracing highly advanced technology that can make the shopping experience even more pleasant and the professional lives of our employees, in the headquarters and the stores, and our associates more qualitative and stimulating.”
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