24/7, no cashier, no lines

I walked into a convenience store in Shanghai at 11 PM. No staff at the counter. Just a small sign: “Scan to enter. Scan to pay. See you next time.”

I swiped my phone against the door, it clicked open, and I walked in. Nobody greeted me. Nobody followed me around. Just me and a hundred shelves of snacks, drinks, and instant noodles.

I grabbed a bottle of iced tea and a pack of spicy tofu. When I walked to the exit, a screen lit up, automatically scanning my items. I held my phone against the scanner — a payment of 12 yuan went through. The door opened, and I walked out.

Total time: four minutes. Words exchanged: zero.

I tried it again the next night, just to see if it was real. Same thing. No cashier, no line, no small talk.

Later, I read that these stores use over a hundred cameras to track every item and every person. It sounds like surveillance, but it feels like trust.

In my country, convenience stores have three employees on shift and still get robbed. Here, nobody even watches the door. And somehow, it works.

Video: Shenzhen’s cashier-less stores.

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