AI, Digital Price Tags, Age Verification Are Hot Tech Solutions for C-Store Retailers

In the convenience-store industry, technology is evolving quickly, with many new products and services available to retailers. 

At the 2024 NACS Show in Las Vegas, CSP editors saw a variety of solutions, including artificial intelligence (AI)-based software, self-checkout, digital price tags and more.

Read ahead for technology trends seen at the NACS Show and tune in to CSP’s C-StoreTEC initiative to learn about the power of partnership and how technology and strategy combine to drive growth in the convenience store sector. Don't miss out on future C-StoreTEC webinars, podcasts and the upcoming conference.

NCR Voyix, a software development company based in Atlanta, is launching a solution that collects transaction data and allows retailers to interact with an AI-powered chatbot to ask specific questions about it. The AI refers to the data and provides a simple answer, making it faster than having to sift through the numbers, the company said. 

Self-checkout has been around for a while, but AI is becoming more prominent in self-checkout technology. Several tech companies are offering a self-checkout solution where a customer can lay all the items in their basket down under a camera to be recognized simultaneously. The system uses AI to capture what the items are and determine the price, and the customer can pay without having to scan everything individually, or even at all. 

Atlanta-based NCR Voyix’s Halo Checkout (left) uses computer vision to itemize all of the basket at once.

Diebold Nixdorf’s Vynamic Smart Vision self-checkout (right) addresses the prevention of fraud as well as the detection of purposeful or accidental user errors. North Canton, Ohio-basedDiebold Nixdorf’s new AI-powered solution directly accounts for retailers’ needs to easily implement and deploy new and enterprise ready technologies across multiple store formats and geographies, according to the company.

Alpharetta, Georgia-based PDI Technologies’ Electronic Shelf Labels automatically keep prices synced with the point of sale (POS) at all times. 

The tech is integrated with PDI Enterprise Pricebook and leverages the point-of-sale update processes.

The shelf labels have customizable displays that can be based on product, package, promotion, seasonality and more; have a secure connection with existing back-office and in-store Wi-Fi; are temperature resistant and waterproof; and can be changed on a schedule without manual intervention.

Diebold Nixdorf’s Vynamic Smart Vision Age Verification initiates automated age verification when an age-restricted item is scanned. 

The customer’s face characteristics are compared with the metrics in a database and the customer’s age is verified based on an age threshold.

Leveraging AI and machine learning (ML), Relex True Inventory establishes a more precise view of inventory balance on hand, identifying inventory anomalies and providing store operatives with prioritized recommendations for the most value-adding inventory checks, according to the company.

This is driven from a new approach to leveraging AI including using probabilistic modelling to pinpoint the right products to direct store associates to, while leveraging the Relex ML demand forecasting capability.  

With this innovation, AI is used to improve data accuracy because Relex True Inventory builds and maintains perpetual inventory from POS transactions, constantly learning from new data. This enables the use of replenishment ordering technology even when inventory data is unavailable, which is particularly beneficial for fresh products.