Cust2Mate is a leading innovator in retail technology, aiming to revolutionize the shopping experience. By implementing smart cart technology, the tech company addresses the issue of theft while enhancing the shopper's journey. 

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Revolutionizing Retail: Cust2Mate's Smart Carts Enhance Security and Shopping Experience

To prevent shoplifting. We are seeing more and more drugstores like CVS and Walgreens lock up basic products like deodorants, soap and cosmetics and custom made as a company focused on revolutionizing retail shopping for both the customer and the retailer, one car at a time. So joining me now is the company's chief marketing officer. You need Zuckerman. Thank you so much for joining and we've seen a lot of these stores like I mentioned, take different precautions, obviously amid COVID trying to prevent shoplifting. How effective are you finding that method? So, hi, Christian and thanks for having me. It's a pleasure being here. Uh Yeah, you know, I've been visiting a lot of stores in the United States and other countries and I've met all those locked up products and it's, it's not, it's not a pleasant experience for me and I guess for all other shoppers and I do think it's not an effective way to mitigate to fight shoplifting because eventually it is hurting the bottom line. First, it deters customers away. It produces a lot of friction into the process and it is steering customers away from actually buying those products. So it's a lose, lose situation eventually. How does your company smart car technology? Then I address this issue of theft while enhancing the shopper experience? Great question. This is the holy grail eventually. So first, our focus is first and foremost on the customer experience. We our cars are designed with the end customer at mind helping both the retailers, our direct customers and the shoppers to get to a win win situation. Um So uh it improves their, their experience, their shopping experience from this, from the moment they get into the store until they leave the store. Our carts actually serves as a kind of a shopping companion for them helping them throughout the shopping journey and eventually bypassing the lines, long lines at the checkout because checkout is being done at the car. But we all know that shoplifting and even honest mistakes are a big, big issue. And we do this by providing five layers of technology within our cart that ensures that every product that is being put into the cart is being recognized, identified and added to the cart and added to the bill and eventually is being paid off, no extra and no less. Walk me through the five layers of security equipped in some of these carts and how they do protect stores from theft. So those technologies are both physical technologies but also A I based technologies. So we combine what we call this five layers of protection. It's a combination of barcode scanner to scan the code, a computer vision backed camera that identifies expensive products, an R reader that also can identify and read particular products that have been deemed more, more theft driven a security scale at the bottom of the cart that weighs every product being inserted into the car and make sure that this is the right product by checking the weight of the product. And eventually on top of everything, we have an A I based software that the transactions and monitors the activities and flags, identifies and flags, anomalous types of behaviors and activities that can be addressed and targeted to the employees at the stores and they can go and check what is going on and remedy any situation. How does, how do the security features yet work together to ensure the real accuracy of product recognition and tracking? So, uh the first, the first uh stage uh in the, in the shopping experience is to log in and then either with your loyalty card or with your phone number and then you start doing your shopper, your shopping, you just add products to, to the cart, you scan them immediately when you scan them and our carts are connected to the point of sale systems of, of, of our custom retail customers. And then it is being placed at the car, the car weighs the product and identifies and cross checks that this is the right way that is corresponding with this product on top of that, all products being inserted in the car are being imaged through our computer vision based cameras. And if there is a discrepancy there, it will flag and it will stop, it will stop the transaction and we will raise a notification to the customer. Hey, there is something wrong. Maybe you forgot to place the the item or maybe you put the wrong item, please take the item outside and put the right item. So we converse with the customer in order to close this issue immediately at the card. And eventually uh when they, when they are done with their shopping, you see that all items are there, that the prices are right, that the discounts are right. And only then they can proceed to checkout, which is again being done on the on the actual cart. How does custom made platform blend online and physical shopping experiences? And how is that beneficial? So, um we really see ourselves as a, as a company that introduces or enables our retail customers to introduce uh uh uh the online shopping experience at the physical store. Basically. Uh the way our users are using the card is very similar to the experience. They, they do when they do the online shopping at the at the retailers websites, ecommerce websites, same information, same additional services. They can also get suggestions on additional products. They can get coupons, they can use their coupons, they can use, they can get special offers, they can be exposed to advertisements which are targeted specifically for them. It's very similar to the experience that you have on any online online ecommerce site. Uh But the best thing that eventually you can sense the product, you can feel the product, you can touch the product because you are at the store and you go away home immediately with your, with your shopping cart and with your items. So it's immediate gratification and how does custom made modular cart system try to lower costs, minimize some of these space requirements and really reduce energy consumption versus a traditional cart. So uh the first generation of of cars both for us, for customers and for many of our competitors were fully integrated cars, very big, very bulky and eventually very expensive and heavy uh both on the the power consumption and actual way. And they did a fantastic job but they were too, too cumbersome, too big. They, they, they were taken too much of a space at the store and some of them you could not even take them out of the store. We came with the next with the new generation. Our, our 3.0 generation of smart car is completely modular. We are providing a kit which encompass a smart panel which is basically uh basically the the the cart and the security scale and we can retrofit any existing shopping cart that it's part of the fleet of the customers with our kit. So it's we, we've been able to reduce costs down to shrink everything in terms of size of scale of weight and also power consumption and also to, to uh be very much effective in terms in terms of the space that we actually need because the cards could be the regular cards, they can be outside of the store, no need for extra space within the store. So everything is much more streamlined and efficient. How do your cards offer a comprehensive security solution? Really to make sure that that security is in place. So as I mentioned, we have the five layers of security which are being operated throughout the shopping process. But then there are additional layers that make sure that actually you pay at the end of your visit and to make sure that you are not going out without paying and with the equipment. So for example, we make sure that eventually in order to pay, you need to scan a specific code at a certain point and only then you can pay, you will pay on the card, but you can't go out of the store without paying first for all your items. And even if you have paid for the items, we we make sure that you are not going away entirely with the car by having another technology that senses if you are going out throughout a certain perimeter and it enables us to identify this and lock the wheels of the stores, but there are other types of technology that can be used in order to protect the equipment and not only the transactions, Jan Zuckerman, Chief Marketing Officer of Kim. Thank you.