Rewe opens first till-less store in Germany… or is it?

Rewe has opened Germany’s first till-less supermarket of the ‘Pick and Go’ type. It uses the same technology as Tesco‘s recent trial store in London. However, the store is not really without tills, but rather a – as Rewe puts it – ‘hybrid store’.

Roll-out in the pipeline

A few months after announcing it, today Rewe’s till-less store in Cologne actually opened. The technology used is provided by Trigo, as is the case with the Tesco store that recently opened in Holborn, in the centre of London. Customers have to download a dedicated ‘Pick and Go’ app, log in and add a payment method, local Radio Köln reports. They can then enter the store by scanning a QR code at the entrance, but they will not need their smartphone anymore after that. “We have cameras on the ceiling and weight sensors in the shelves, which can record what and how much the customers take”, Project Manager Anika Vooes told the Cologne radio station. 

It is a first for Germany, but Rewe hopes this store will not be the only till-less store in Germany for long. The chain added it will undoubtedly expand its trial of ‘Pick and Go’, but the pace of the roll-out will be determined by how well customers respond, Vooes said. 

First till-less German supermarket?

It sounds somewhat like the Amazon Go stores, which the American giant is rolling out. However, there is one crucial difference: the German supermarket chain believes it is essential that customers can still shop in the traditional way. So, although customers can shop checkout-free, the store still has a cash register. 

Other German supermarket chains are also experimenting with till-less technologies: loyal readers will recall that Aldi announced a pilot project in the Netherlands just this month. A till-less Aldi has already opened in London, but currently, it is only open for its staff. Lidl-owner Schwarz Gruppe is also running a similar ‘in-house’ till-less trial: the shop.box opened in March in Heilbronn, the south of Germany.