A Wegmans shopper documented his experience of using the grocery store chain’s “smart” carts in a viral TikTok that’s amassed over 6.8 million views.
Julio Carabello (@juliocaraballo_) demonstrated the “clip-on” smart cart attachment, sparking a litany of stunned responses from other users on the platform.
@juliocaraballo_ wegmans is better..🤷🏽♂️ #fyp #viral #future #foryou #shopping #couples ♬ original sound – Julio Caraballo
Julio begins his video by strolling through the aisles of Wegmans: “All right y’all, so me and my girlfriend are at Wegmans and they have a cart that anytime you put anything in there it adds it to your list automatically. Watch.”
He shows off the cart’s screen in the video, then transitions to his girlfriend standing in front of shelves, perusing a variety of sauces. “All right so she’s gonna grab some sauce, go ahead, show them,” Julio says. The tablet screen automatically recognizes the product, displaying a picture of it.
The cart isn’t only adept at recognizing when items have been placed inside of the cart; it can also tell when they’ve been removed. The Wegmans customer demonstrates this “futuristic” feature by taking out the random snack his girlfriend tossed in.
“OK, now the best part, no more waiting in lines,” he says. “All you do is you pay from where the kiosk is on your cart.”
That’s right: When you’re done shopping, you can pay right on the tablet attached to the smart cart, which he demonstrates. “So then you just hit pay, you just make sure you approve everything that’s on your list, and that’s it,” he explains.
Several viewers used the comments section as an opportunity to slander Walmart: “If this was WALMART they would still check your receipt.”
But there were other shoppers who found the Wegmans smart cart’s features revolutionary: “That total amount in the cart is a game changer. I’m always caught off guard when my total is $450 for 4 boxes of cereal.”
Then, there were those who wanted to see if there was a way to mess with the cart’s ID system: “Throw 7 things in at the same time and see if it still gets it right…..I’d spend the whole shopping trip trying to trick it.”
One commenter brought up what these smart carts could mean for employees. “The jobs this is going to take from people though,” they wrote.
Freethink published an article about the potential future of retail, writing that up to 65 percent of all positions could be gobbled up by automation as soon as 2025. Charged also writes that one out of every five retail jobs in the U.K., according to IT analysts, will be replaced by artificial intelligence.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Julio via TikTok comment and to Wegmans via email for further information.
