like any new stores marketing officer rajesh malamal stands outside watasale the latest retail outlet in kochis gold souk grande mall chatting with customers hes not just making an anxious sales pitch hes actually explaining how to use the store watasale is a fullyautomated cashierfree shop inspired by amazon go stores in the us where you can just pick up an item and walk out with it and the cost is debited from your ewallet no the security alarms wont go offthe 500sq ft store that opened this week depends on artificial intelligence camera technology and sensors a customer has to download the watasale app on his or her phone and register using an email id and phone number explains subhash s watasales ceo the app provides a qr code that works as an identifier as well as a ticket into the store a customer has to scan the code and enter the store advt a customer can walk in pick products and leave they dont have to scan every product just the qr code once at the entrance subhash says the app debits the bill amount automatically from the customers account or wallet no cashier no scanning and no waiting in linethe store ceiling and shelves are laced with sophisticated sensors and closed circuit cameras the system monitors your every movement it records what product you have taken and what you have put back on the rack this store is more advanced than other cashierless stores where customers scan the products themselves says malamalglobally checkout free shops are gaining traction two years ago a chinese startup bingobox launched cashierless stores and currently has more than 300 shops across 30 cities in china almost a year ago hypercity opened two cashierless stores in the infosys campus at hyderabad which were powered by a bengalurubased startup amazon go already has three stores in the us and announced the opening of its new york one recently these stores use technology to gather biometric information including height weight and purchase history of the customerwatasale currently stocks 180 products we wont increase this as we dont want the store to be cramped we might offer more products in our new shops in other towns malamal says watasale plans to expand to bengaluru and delhi soon within three months we plan to open a store in bengaluru followed by one in delhi malamal says by disney tom shenoy karun tnn published on sep 10 2018 at 0832 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etretail app