This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five segment explores SPAR Austria's decision to expand its shelf-scanning robot program and what it means for the future of retail operations.
Chris Walton and Shelley Huff discuss how robotics can improve inventory visibility, reduce labor-intensive tasks, and help employees focus more on serving customers.
The discussion also highlights why successful adoption among European retailers could signal broader industry momentum.
⏩ Tune in for the full episode here: https://youtu.be/3lV5GVTa-TQ
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Transcripts
Speaker A:
Spar Austria is expanding its use of Simbi's TALLY inventory robot from a successful two store pilot to six Eurospar and Interspar stores, making it the first food retailer in Austria to use an inventory robot in regular store operations.
Speaker A:
According to Spar International, the robot moves through stores several times a day, scanning shelves, identifying inventory levels and gaps, and automatically transmitting that information to employees mobile devices without disrupting daily operations.
Speaker A:
The initial five month pilot was conducted at Eurospar in Vienna and one Interspar store in Eisenstadt, my favorite city in Germany, to say, and demonstrated that automated shelf scans can significantly reduce the time employees spend on inspection rounds.
Speaker A:
The expansion gives six stores the technology and the aim is explicitly dual.
Speaker A:
One, reduce employee workload while two employees improving product availability for consumers.
Speaker A:
Shelley, the audience no doubt knows where I come down on in store robotics, but what are the pros and cons with robots as you see it, and do you see any significance in Spar, particularly getting behind them?
Speaker B:
Well, on this, I think, you know, and you've been in Europe a lot lately and you've seen a lot of retail technology, but Europeans are famously disciplined operators.
Speaker B:
And so when they're scaling technology, it means it scales because it's working.
Speaker B:
And I think this is an example of getting data faster and becoming more efficient.
Speaker B:
So I think that that part's exciting.
Speaker B:
I've been a part of inventory processes in stores at several points in my career early on, and no one looks forward to them.
Speaker B:
It takes a lot of labor to accomplish it.
Speaker B:
It is arduous work.
Speaker B:
And so I think this is an example of robotics really delivering against the ability to do this more efficiently and leave storing store associates open to, to and that payroll open to really service customers well.
Speaker B:
So this is exciting.
Speaker A:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:
And I'm going to add a yes and to that because I agree with everything you said and I've talked about, you know, in store robotics, particularly in the grocery environment, being one of the linchpins of a truly, you know, connected store idea.
Speaker A:
But the other thing about this headline that I think is really interesting, Shelley, is, is the size of the typical Spar stores.
Speaker A:
You know, I did some research on that.
Speaker A:
They're like 20 to 60,000ft.
Speaker A:
So they can be bigger, they can be like the traditional US grocery store size, but they can get down to 20,000ft.
Speaker A:
So to your point, with European retailers and the operational discipline they put towards things, that means you have a large European retailer with a huge store base that is potentially, potentially finding value in a robot in even smaller footprints relative to where we've seen robots operate to date.
Speaker A:
And, you know, for that for those maybe that aren't as familiar, like, we've seen them be successfully deployed at schnooks in the U.S. which is a traditional U.S. grocer.
Speaker A:
Traditional U.S. size of a grocer, and also warehouse clubs like BJ's, which is just, you know, a massive warehouse operation.
Speaker A:
So this is a very different angle here where you start getting into, you know, the smaller footprints where the ROI can potentially pay back.
Speaker A:
Because if that happens, then look out, because then you start reaching the hypermarkets, particularly over in Europe, and potentially even get into the convenience store arena, too, if you can figure out the right mechanism by which the the robot and the ROI can pay off based on all the use cases you just talked about.
Speaker B:
Shelley I think it's great.
Speaker B:
It's a really exciting time to see robotics in retail.
