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Solution

CornerShop, the store of tomorrow

Capgemini, The Drum and SharpEnd have created CornerShop, a live store in London where we transform retail shopping and customer engagement to bring to life the store of tomorrow.

Using the latest technologies, we have reimagined shopping experiences for food, drink & fashion and offer an experiential space for retailers to test them out.

Inspired by the traditional British corner shop, this new approach will support retailers and brands as they understand how digital innovation can enable new ways to evolve the customer experience, improve in-store operations and enable consumers to rediscover the joy of in-person retail, through exciting new options to engage and shop.

CornerShop is split into four corners, each exploring fundamental aspects of the shopping experience: the automated store, the augmented store, the purposeful store and the personalised store. Combining real-life products, the latest technologies and personalised experiences, everything on display in CornerShop has been curated based on insights gathered from deep global research and data analysis, as well as Capgemini’s real-world expertise from addressing the challenges faced by clients and their customers every day. CornerShop will continue to evolve and introduce more innovative technology concepts to suit the evolving needs of retailers and brands.

Guided tour

Lara Lewington a tour of CornerShop

Founding partners Capgemini, SharpEnd and The Drum were pleased to offer TV presenter Lara Lewington a tour of CornerShop, which was shown on BBC Click in May 2021.

Watch on BBC iPlayer to see what Lara made of it.

Shopping experiences

As a visitor enters the store, their mobile phone becomes the retail experience remote control, leading them through the space, allowing them to engage with the new shopping concepts and experiences on offer, and providing insights on the technologies harnessed, such as Machine Learning (ML), Augmented Reality (AR), computer vision and LIDAR and Photogrammetry. Some of the shopping experiences currently testing in-store are:

  • Your store – using Bluetooth-based location technologies, customers will be greeted with a personalised experience when they enter the store and the ability to customise the physical space to their preference.
  • Virtual Try-On – this solution explores how users can create their digital twin and then view products on themselves without trying them on physically. When an item is hung up on the virtual try-on display, computer vision and RFID identify the product, convert it into a digital image and map it to the consumer on a full-length smart mirror.
  • Pay by the pick in-store vertical farm – customers will be able to browse and buy fresh produce that lines the walls of CornerShop and has been grown in the store using the latest in vertical farming intelligent agriculture technologies. Customers can select only as much as they need, avoiding food waste and excessive packaging.
  • Purposeful shopping guidance – through a combination of the CornerShop mobile app, connected packaging, AR and digital screens – customers will be able to share their individual needs, preferences, intolerances and sustainability goals, which the store will use to guide them towards the right products to meet their goals through wayfinding, intelligent filtering and relevant product recommendations and insights.
  • Social distance automation – cameras and computer vision will be able to measure social distancing in store and ensure regulations, helping store staff manage customer safety.
  • Sentient store – CornerShop empowers customers to retain control of their data with strong data governance, security and integration to a central data platform, which can be combined with sensor tracking technologies, such as beacons, and camera analytics, to tailor the store experience to customers and to generate actionable insights on customers and their behaviour in store. This insight is anonymously accessible for everyone in the store, to learn what the store learns.

Adding to the retail experience, CornerShop will also house a fully contactless barista experience, serving fresh coffee and self-serve snacks. We will also use the space and will offer regular content from the CornerShop.

A constantly evolving space, CornerShop is ready to help retailers, brands and consumers test and experience what the future of retail holds.