ADA, Ohio -- Exposure to high-tech concepts for students at Ohio Northern University will now extend to their snack-and-candy cravings, as one major grocery chain installs a robotic convenience store.
The site is one of only a half-dozen operating in the United States, with the others operated by third-party vendors in college campuses and apartment buildings.
"[Kroger] saw this as an opportunity for market expansion and extension," said Michael Weigel, chief sales and marketing officer for Shop24 Global LLC, Columbus, Ohio. The site is Kroger's only Shop24 store, he told CSP Daily News, with the potential for more being contingent on this first location.
Officials with Kroger declined to comment.
The 140-square-foot plexiglass-encased device housing 200 items is large enough to be considered more than a vending machine, Weigel said, with robotic machinery allowing customers to purchase up to seven items in one transaction. Robotic arms pick out selected items that move into a basket. That basket travels to a dispensing point where customers can obtain the items.
Weigel would not discuss price, but did say that the company offers two business models, one where retailers or third parties purchase the devices outright and another where Shop24 installs and operates the store while giving the retailer a fee.
(Click here for a humorous video featuring a Shop24 unit at SUNY Cortland.)
Though the company is 15 years old with 250 stores set up overseas, it made its debut here in the United States about a year-and-a-half ago. In addition to the six placed in Ohio, the company has contracts for more in the next 60 to 90 days. A significant installation is about to occur in Dallas, he said, with another site going up in an apartment complex in Salt Lake City.
Kroger, based in Cincinnati, is one of the nation's largest grocery retailers. Operating under nearly two dozen banners, The Kroger Co. spans many states with store formats that include grocery and multi-department stores, convenience stores and mall jewelry stores.
The Shop24 "ultra convenience store" is a self-contained, refrigerated and robotic c-store designed to enable 24x7 consumer purchasing. Originally operated in Europe and the East Coast of the United States, Shop24 units dispense a variety of items such as snacks, cleaning supplies, medicine and even full meals closer to the customer "and in a fraction of the time it takes to go to and shop at a traditional convenience store," the company said.
The more-than-nine-foot-tall machine offers up to 200 traditional c-store items ranging in weight from less than one ounce to eight pounds. Shop24 accepts different methods of payment including cash, credit cards, debit cards and supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) cards 24 hours a day, as well as many student meal cards.
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