Smart stores: what they are and how autonomous retail works

A smart store uses cameras, sensors and connected software to automate some of the work involved in running a physical shop. That can include keeping track of stock, changing prices or recording what customers buy. Checkout-free stores were one of the earliest and most visible examples. Customers could enter, pick up what they wanted and leave without scanning their items or stopping at a checkout. Cameras and sensors followed what they took from the shelves, and payment was handled automatically afterwards.

Amazon built its Go and Fresh stores around this model, and Tesco, Sainsbury's and Aldi opened their own versions in the UK between 2021 and 2023. Making the experience work consistently proved difficult. A checkout-free system has to keep track of several things at once: who picked up an item, whether they kept it or put it back, and which products should appear on their final bill.

Aldi's Greenwich store used more than 330 cameras to track customers and products. Mistakes still occurred. In one widely reported case, a customer who took five bananas was charged for six. Aldi closed the store in 2026 and brought back self-checkouts. Sainsbury's removed Amazon's Just Walk Out system from its Holborn store. Amazon's own UK Fresh stores never expanded much beyond twenty locations before the company announced plans to close them.

Morrisons is installing 10.8 million electronic shelf labels across all 497 of its stores. Prices can be changed centrally rather than having staff replace paper labels by hand, and the systems introduced alongside them help staff identify where stock is running low. Waitrose, Asda and the Co-op are introducing electronic labels and other forms of shelf technology too.

The work being automated here is narrower. A shelf label just needs to show the right price, and a sensor just needs to flag low stock so staff know where to look. Checkout-free technology has to do something much harder: watch what everyone in the store is doing and turn all of that into one accurate bill per customer.

For most UK retailers right now, that means changing prices on a shelf rather than removing the till altogether.

What is a smart store?

A smart store is a physical shop where cameras, sensors, connected devices and software take care of some of the work involved in running the store. This can be as simple as changing prices on electronic shelf labels or monitoring stock levels, or as complex as identifying the products a customer has picked up and charging them automatically.

Checkout-free shopping is one example of this, not the whole of it. Many retailers use the same technology to manage shelves, stock, pricing and other day-to-day store operations while keeping staffed and self-service checkouts in place.

Terms such as "connected store" and "intelligent retail environment" are also used to describe similar setups, and there is considerable overlap between them.

Which technologies make a store autonomous?

A smart store can use several types of technology. The right mix depends on what a retailer wants to automate, whether that's changing shelf prices, keeping track of stock, or removing the checkout altogether.

1. Cameras and sensors

Checkout-free stores use cameras to follow what customers pick up and put back, backed up by sensors on the shelves that confirm when an item has actually been removed. Customers pick up several products at once, change their minds or put something back in a different place, and the system has to sort out all of this correctly to charge each customer for the right items, a task that went wrong often enough at Aldi's Greenwich store to end the trial.

2. RFID and weight sensors

RFID tags identify individual products directly, while weight sensors detect when something has left a shelf by measuring the change in weight. Both help retailers track stock more precisely, in checkout-free stores and standard ones alike.

3. Electronic shelf labels

Electronic shelf labels are digital versions of paper price tags, connected directly to the retailer's pricing system. A price change made centrally reaches every shelf within minutes, updating labels automatically across the store. Morrisons is applying this at scale, with 10.8 million labels across its 497 stores.

4. Shelf cameras and sensors

Cameras and sensors pointed at the shelf itself track how much stock remains. When a product runs low or sells out, the system alerts staff directly, so they know what needs restocking before a customer notices the gap.

5. Entry and payment

Checkout-free stores need to connect each customer with the products they take. Customers usually scan an app, QR code or payment card when they enter, and the system calculates what they bought and charges them automatically once they leave.

A store might run digital price labels and stock sensors alongside its normal checkouts, picking up the automation that suits it. A fully checkout-free store combines several of these systems at once, tracking the customer, logging what they've bought, and taking payment on the way out.

Why retailers are still investing in smart stores?

Checkout-free stores may have struggled in the UK, but retailers are still spending on technology inside their stores. Much of that investment targets everyday problems: keeping track of stock, reducing losses and cutting down the manual work staff have to do.

Stock loss remains a significant cost. The BRC's Crime Report 2026 found that UK retailers had spent nearly £5.5 billion on crime prevention over the previous five years, while theft from deliveries cost more than £100 million in the past year alone.

Better visibility of stock helps retailers spot problems earlier. Shelf sensors and other autonomous store technology show when products are disappearing faster than expected, and RFID tracks individual items as they move through a store. No system catches every theft or stock error, but each one gives retailers a clearer record of what they have and where losses are occurring.

Electronic shelf labels address a different part of store operations. Retailers can change prices centrally instead of sending staff to replace paper labels by hand, which saves time and reduces the chance of a shelf price falling out of step with the price held in the retailer's system.

Staff safety factors into the investment too. The BRC recorded around 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers each day in 2026, down from roughly 2,000 a day the previous year. Cameras and other monitoring systems form part of the security measures retailers use, although changes in incident levels cannot be attributed to store technology alone.

For retailers, smart-store investment now covers much more than getting customers out of the shop without using a checkout. Stock monitoring, pricing and security are all areas where retailers can introduce automation without changing the way customers pay, and this is where most of the current spending is going.

What UK retailers need to get right before going further?

Before introducing smart-store technology, retailers need to look beyond what the system can do and consider how it will work in an actual store.

A camera watching a shelf raises different privacy questions from facial recognition that identifies individual customers. Under UK GDPR, biometric data used to identify a person is classed as special category data and has additional protections. Retailers need to establish a lawful basis for using it, meet the requirements for processing special category data and assess the privacy risks before the system is introduced.

The next question is what happens to the information the system collects. A shelf sensor can show that stock is running low, but that information is much more useful when it appears in the same inventory system staff already use. An electronic shelf label also needs to receive the correct price from the retailer's pricing system. If these connections are missing or unreliable, staff can end up checking information across several systems instead of having one accurate view of the store.

Retailers also need to consider how the technology will be used day to day. Aldi's Greenwich store initially required customers to download an app before entering, and staff had to help those who were unfamiliar with it. Staff are still involved once other systems are in place too. They need to respond when stock is running low, investigate errors and deal with situations the system cannot resolve. Retailers need to factor these requirements into any estimate of how much time or work the technology will save.

Retailers therefore need to consider the work around the technology as carefully as the technology itself. That includes how customer data is handled, where the information collected by the system goes and what staff will need to do once it is in use.

Where this is heading

UK retailers are narrowing down where they use checkout-free stores. Tesco still runs GetGo stores, where customers can choose between checkout-free shopping and a regular checkout. Aldi and Sainsbury's have both scaled back their checkout-free stores this year.

More of the investment is now going into technology that helps run the store. Morrisons is installing electronic shelf labels across 497 stores, and Waitrose, Asda and the Co-op are doing the same. Retailers are also using sensors to monitor stock and tell staff when shelves need filling.

These systems are easier to introduce because customers do not have to do anything differently. They can shop and pay as usual, while the technology handles things like price changes and stock checks in the background.

A price changed on the shelf should also change at checkout and online. If stock runs low in a store, the inventory system should reflect it. Keeping that information connected is what actually makes the technology useful.

Fynd Autonomous Store connects POS, inventory and order management so the same information is available across the store and online.

See how Fynd Autonomous Store works