Zippin announced it has entered a strategic partnership with Brazil's largest retailer, Lojas Americanas S.A., to deploy its checkout-free technology in stores across the country. Though its innovation vertical, "IF – Inovação e Futuro" (Innovation and Future), Lojas Americanas S.A. made a strategic investment in Zippin in June 2019 to use the checkout-free shopping technology in Brazil exclusively and develop new technologies for their Ame Go retail stores. The first Zippin-powered store has already opened in Rio and has been operational for four months. The next store is expected to open in Sao Paulo soon.
The new checkout-free Ame Go stores will vary in size from 250 to 3000 square feet and will be located in high-traffic, mostly urban locations with a largely captive customer base, from financial districts and housing complexes. Customers will access the stores through the company's popular Ame Digital app, which already has over one million active users.
In addition, the company is developing an automated Ame Box checkout-free store-within-a-store concept powered by Zippin.
Zippin's proprietary approach combines vision cognition, sensor fusion technology and machine learning to accurately account for both shopper behavior (through overhead cameras), and product tracking (through smart shelf sensors), for the highest level of accuracy even in crowded stores.
