Credit: Simbe Robotics
Supermarkets such as SPAR Austria, Kroger, Carrefour and Tesco are introducing a shelf-scanning robot from Simbe Robotics to keep track of inventory and pricing accuracy in real time – yet consumers have raised concerns over the shop floor experience, human employment, and value for money.
Tally 4.0 is an autonomous shelf-scanning robot. Powered by high-precision computer vision, the robot collects data about shelf layout, stock and product pricing.
It is said to move ‘quietly and safely’ through supermarket aisles and automatically avoid human beings as it scans the shelves. Through the Simbe Mobile App, Tally delivers prioritized task lists to store associates and informs manager and executive decisions with reports, dashboards, and high-resolution images.
Its 360° fisheye cameras and enhanced 3D depth are thought to unlock visibility in areas that would otherwise be difficult to monitor, such as recessed shelves, upper steel, and bunkers. It also offers digital twin capabilities for expanded storewide walk-throughs.
Regular, automated updates are expected to help supermarket staff speed up restocks, improve product availability, and save employees the time spent conducting inspection rounds.
Across their current applications at Carrefour, Albertsons, BJ’s, ShopRite and more, the robots have reportedly scanned 18 billion price tags, drawn attention to 80 million promotion errors, identified 600 million shelf gaps, and detected ten times more out-of-stocks than manual audits.
In a bid to reduce employee workload while improving customer service, SPAR Austria recently announced that it will introduce Tally to six EUROSPAR and INTERSPAR stores. This follows a five-month trial at the EUROSPAR supermarket in Sagedergasse and the INTERSPAR hypermarket in Eisenstadt.
As reported by The Grocer, Tesco is currently trialling the robot at a single store in the UK. Meanwhile, Morrisons was the first retailer in the country to trial the robots last April before switching to AI-powered cameras on the shelves themselves.
Not everybody approves of the rollout, with the robots garnering mixed responses on social media. Some consumers are already sceptical about its real benefits to the shopping experience.
“Nobody went within 5ft of it and kept giving it side-eye,” wrote one Reddit user after encountering a robot in their local Tesco.
Others complained that a machine had prevented them from walking down a supermarket aisle, with one user commenting: “Can’t wait for that to crash into someone while they are browsing the shelf.”
Commenters also expressed doubts about the payoffs for retail workers. While some felt that the robots could help handle the ‘monotony’ of inventory check and leave more complex, fulfilling tasks to human employees, another wrote: “I’m sure staff are absolutely thrilled at another annoying thing they need to be keeping an eye on.”
“As someone who used to do stock control [at] Tesco, there is absolutely no way that is accurate to counting stock on the shelves at all,” another stated. “Stock will be mixed up on the shelves with different types/flavours. It absolutely cannot see to the bottom shelf properly or any higher shelves.”
“Going to lead to more unemployment,” one user warned. “Of course, you could restrain the cleaners [to be] maintainable technicians to look after them, as that will be an option too.”
Another commenter disagreed: “It’s not replacing a worker. There’s no way a worker could stocktake a whole store multiple times a day.
“It’s doing the work of 20 extra people for nothing and helping save every store money. For colleagues, it will be a massive benefit.
“A lot of stuff is getting stolen nowadays. I think this machine is for that reason. Keeps an eye on stock throughout the day and sees how much is being sold versus stolen.”
Questions also arose as to whether the robots are worth the investment. One Reddit user described them as “a huge waste of money” when “there is literally already on-shelf technology” for real-time inventory checks.
“The stores that had these near me didn’t keep them,” another wrote. “I think it’s still too expensive to have for more than a trial period.”
“I’d be interested to see what cost/benefit/issues something like this would bring,” mused a third. “Seems like an interesting idea in theory, but the manual way round? I don’t know.”
Some even felt that supermarkets are focused on the wrong issue: “I think a robot that apprehends shoplifters will be the game changer,” said one user. “Not a stock counting robot.”
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