IoT-Enabled Sustainable Solution for Smart Shopping Experience

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) is transforming people’s lives by connecting common objects. Retail marketing sectors are greatly benefited by IoT-enabled technologies in modernizing the billing and cart-filling activities. Customers experience many delays by waiting in the long queues within the marts. This problem is addressed by designing an affordable radio frequency identification (RFID)-based smart shopping cart that can be used in all retail marketing scenarios. When an item is placed in a smart shopping cart, it can be instantly scanned by a cart equipped with an RFID reader. As a result, billing can be done directly from the shopping cart, saving customers from having to wait in a long line at the checkout. Further, the authors enhance the smart shopping cart which includes smart shelving that is equipped with a video sensor that reads the QR code on the item and may monitor stock, possibly also updating a central server. The major advantage of this type of system is that inventory management becomes much easier because all items can be automatically added after scanning the QR code of the item rather than being manually scanned by a laborer.