Carrefour Belgium has opened an autonomous store spanning just 18 square metres near the company's new headquarters in Zaventem, according to media reports.
The Carrefour BuyBye micro store offers last-minute everyday items and will complement and expand the range offered to customers via the retailer's other formats.
Carrefour Belgium plans to roll out the micro-store concept to its existing physical shops, the report said.
Presently, the stand-alone store operates from Monday to Friday between 7am to 10pm. The retailer plans to extend operations to seven days a week from January of next year.
Carrefour BuyBye
The Carrefour BuyBye outlet primarily features refrigerators with lunch, snacks, cold drinks, fruit, and other items.
It operates on artificial intelligence and uses a combination of product weighing and computer vision detection technologies.
Cameras placed on shelves double check the products for accuracy in billing and the AI technology is programmed to identify each product from every angle to ensure a seamless customer experience.
To access the store, shoppers need to download the Carrefour Buybye app, create an account and add a payment method.
To execute the project, Carrefour Belgium teamed up with the start-up Reckon AI, which specialises in designing micro shops equipped with artificial intelligence.
In October, Carrefour reported weaker third-quarter sales growth than expected, as food price inflation declined and consumers kept cutting back on spending.
Chief executive Alexandre Bompard had warned in August that French consumers were massively cutting their spending on essential goods, and blamed consumer goods firms for not bringing prices down fast enough.
