And you thought VAR is used only in football?

Over the past several years, retail chain stores have been witnessing higher rates of shoplifting. According to Tom Ironside, Director of Business Regulation at the British Retail Consortium, the losses have now become substantial, with figures skyrocketing past two billion pounds! Retail chains are actively exploring technological options to detect and potentially prevent retail shrinkage.

Inspired by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in football, which aims to correct obvious errors and serious incidents missed by the on-field referees, large format retail stores have started introducing a VAR-like review at their self-checkout (SCO) counters.

VAR is an eye-opener for SCO

The VAR-like technology solution used by retail chains has two main components – a camera placed directly above the SCO till and a collection of visual AI algorithms that can detect any incorrect scanning of items at the till.

When a customer scans items at the visual AI-powered SCO, visual AI is used to detect anomalies quickly and send a nudge over the SCO display. This enables the customer to instantly review the footage on the video display of the SCO and take corrective action without any intervention from the store staff.

Here are a few trends that visual AI at the SCO has helped uncover:

• Price tags switched to pay less for expensive items
• Partial payment through product stacking as only the item placed at the top of the stack is scanned.
• Carts full of goods pushed out, while only a few items are scanned.
• Weighing scale-based solutions being bypassed as they cannot detect the scanning of cheaper items that are equal in weight when compared with the actual item being stolen.

With multiple leading retail chains already adopting this technology over the past few months, the technology is being viewed as highly effective by the retail industry. According to retailers, the new system is being used to serve a gentle reminder to shoppers, giving an opportunity to make corrections themselves, especially when the error could have occurred due to genuine oversight or human error.

SAI Group's visual AI platform

SAI Group’s visual AI platform currently powers thousands of stores across 3 of the top 5 retail chains in the UK. Here are some of the key benefits offered by SAI Group’s visual AI platform:

• Instant non-payment detection: Utilizes AI to instantly identify when customers avoid payments.
• Subtle but powerful: Delivers real-time prompts to the SCO monitor, allowing customers to self-correct without direct staff involvement.
• Empowered store staff: Keeps the store staff informed by sending notifications on the store’s hand-held terminals.
• Seamless SCO integration: Compatible with a range of self-checkout systems for straightforward multi-vendor integration.

About SAI

As a leader in computer vision technology, SAI Group delivers cutting-edge, multi-modal AI solutions into retail environments. Using a unique platform approach, its technology uses existing camera systems to target losses, increase store safety, and underpin operational efficiencies.

All solutions are built from the ground up to ensure the highest levels of security and data protection, respecting the privacy expectations of the public and operating to stringent ethical standards while delivering substantial value to our clients. Globally, SAI monitors millions of transactions per day, protecting the revenues from tens of millions of product sales and hundreds of millions of customer interactions. Its models also accurately identify anti-social behaviour, aggression and violence, helping to de-escalate situations with real-time interfaces to security officers and operations centres.