Dollar General Testing Checkout-Free Operations in North Carolina

A Dollar General store in Banner Elk, N.C., is experimenting with cashierless technology, as reported by Insider. Customers at this location don't have to stand in line or deal with a self-checkout kiosk at the end of their visit. Instead, they can simply walk out with their purchases – similar to how Amazon uses Just Walk Out technology at its stores. 

However, Dollar General is employing autonomous technology from AiFi. The Burlingame, Calif.-based startup uses a camera-only solution that doesn’t require weighted shelves, a move that reportedly significantly reduces the deployment cost and time. AiFi leverages advanced tracking algorithms that can scale up to 10,000 square feet to support various shopper journeys such as an app, credit card, gated or hybrid entry.

[Read more: "Dollar General to Open 1st Stores in Montana"]

Last year, AiFi raised $65 million in Series B funding. It now has more than 100 autonomous stores deployed around the world, which have reached more than 1 million customers, with 6 million products sold. In 2022 alone, AiFi sold more than 4.8 million products, which is a 1,926% increase over the number of products sold in 2021. AiFi works with partners such as ALDI, Carrefour, Choice Market, Sodexo, Compass Group, Live Nation and Żabka, Poland’s largest convenience store chain.

Although AiFi’s computer vision-powered solution is gaining in popularity, Dollar General isn’t committing to a chainwide rollout of autonomous shopping yet. “Consistent with our ongoing strategy to continually look for new ways to meet our customers’ value and convenience needs, we recently piloted a store with frictionless technology,” Dollar General told Insider. “While we do not currently plan to expand this technology, we instead will continue to test and learn.”