Over the weekend Zippin reached a major milestone at Houston’s Toyota Center, home of the Rockets: one million shoppers have now experienced checkout-free retail at a store powered by Zippin’s platform. With 73 Zippin-powered stores launched to date, that number is growing daily, and we are predicting that Zippin’s technology will have served a whopping ten million shoppers by Fall 2023.
The swift adoption of checkout-free shopping demonstrates that frictionless experiences are being embraced by consumers who are weary of waiting in line, or worse, having to use self-checkout terminals. Three-quarters of shoppers who have experienced Zippin-powered stores to date have done so in 2022, and we expect to add another million shoppers by February. Just as importantly, Zippin’s technology has saved 167,000 hours for shoppers who didn’t have to wait in line to checkout, and retailers are hearing the call for increased convenience loud and clear.
One Million Shoppers Can’t Be Wrong
At Zippin, we’ve seen accelerated adoption happen in quick-serve locations like sports and entertainment venues, and airports and train stations, where time is of the essence. Concessionaires have reaped the benefits of consumers voting with their feet and wallets, returning to these frictionless concessions and spending more, more often. Our partners have seen sales increase by up to 50 percent.
How We Got Here
We want to take this opportunity to recognize and appreciate the fact that we didn’t get here alone. Food service leaders like Aramark, Compass, Legends, and SSP America, leaned into the benefits of checkout-free from the start. They saw value in launching multiple checkout-free locations like Aramark-run Empower Field which boasts nine Zippin-powered stores, Barclays Center which has five frictionless stores, and Gainbridge Fieldhouse, led by Levy Restaurants, a subsidiary of Compass, where the full slate of renovations involved checkout-free from 2020 to 2022.
As Zippin continues to innovate with flexible configurations that bring quick returns for retailers, like the recently launched Zippin Lane, venues from Nissan Stadium in Nashville, to Toyota Center in Houston, are deploying more and more in their concourses to serve eventgoers year-round.
The ability to increase throughput and speed of service has created a win-win for shoppers and retailers. Shoppers are getting what they need faster: by reducing the time spent purchasing drinks and snacks from as much as 20 minutes to as little as 20 seconds, we’re seeing an increased number of visits. Retailers experience improved metrics like a 66% increase in speed of service at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, or 42% more transactions at Empower Field in Denver.
Moving At Pace Into 2023
Checkout-free shopping is replacing the much-loathed self-checkout systems that have replaced cashiers but turned off consumers who are irritated at having to do all the work themselves.
The pandemic was an accelerant for technologies and services like contactless payments, and curbside pick-up that we now can’t imagine our lives without. It’s safe to say checkout-free shopping, made possible by AI and ambient computing, is quickly becoming indispensable. We’re proud to be driving the emergence of the frictionless economy that answers the call to make life easier for everyone.
