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Jan 09, 2024

San Antonio Whole Foods store gets smart shopping carts

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Amazon's Dash Carts have cameras that can read bar codes.

Amazon started rolling out its Dash Cart technology in September 2020.

The Dash Carts have screens that show a tally of items as shoppers place them in the basket.

Amazon is rolling out its smart shopping carts at a Whole Foods Market store in San Antonio, one of the grocery chain's first three locations to feature the technology.

At the store in the Vineyard Shopping Center on the North Side, customers use a QR code in the Whole Foods app on their phone to start using one of 30 Dash Carts now in operation. As they shop, they use cameras attached to the cart to scan items and a screen keeps a tally in real time. Produce can be weighed in the cart's basket.

When they’re ready to check out, customers head through a designated Dash Cart lane and their payment is processed via the credit card attached to their Whole Foods or Amazon account. A receipt is sent via email soon after.

On ExpressNews.com: ‘Nobody has cracked the code yet:’ H-E-B, Walmart, Kroger keep testing self-checkout technology

Amazon bought Whole Foods for more than $13 billion in 2017 and debuted its Dash Cart technology in 2020. It has since added the carts to many of its Amazon Fresh stores and is now putting them in Whole Foods locations. Stores in Lynnwood, Wash., and Westford, Mass., join the San Antonio store as the first with Dash Carts.

An Amazon spokesperson declined to say how much a cart costs to produce or install, why the company chose the store at 18403 Blanco Road as one of the first to include the carts, or whether the system will be added at its other San Antonio store at 255 E. Basse Road at the Alamo Quarry shopping hub.

"We can't speculate on the future, but we are excited to see how Whole Foods Market customers like the convenience of Dash Carts at the Vineyard store," the spokesperson said.

Amazon said it's made changes to the cart over time, including reducing its weight while increasing its capacity, adding shelves for delicate and oversized items, making it weather resistant and improving its location technology to display products and deals nearby while someone is pushing it.

On ExpressNews.com: Kroger launches grocery delivery in San Antonio, taking on hometown grocer H-E-B, Walmart

A variety of grocery retailers — H-E-B, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, ShopRite, Costco and Hy-Vee, to name a few — have tested a variety of self-checkout technologies in stores. They include mobile apps for scanning and paying, a handheld scanner and scales, belted systems and, of course, self-service checkout stations.

San Antonio-based H-E-B's latest trial is under way at its store in Schertz, with a system based on a handheld scanner and scales to weigh carts.

In an industry with razor-thin margins, retailers are testing such options as a means to reduce labor costs and boost profit.

But few have added all such options at every store because of the high costs of technology and concerns about theft, system glitches and customers’ reactions. E-commerce giant Amazon has the deep pockets to invest in such technology.

Aside from the Dash Carts, the company's Just Walk Out system tracks which items shoppers pick up and charges them when they exit a store. Amazon employs it at its own stores as well as third-party sites such as stadiums.

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