Spurred by Amazon, supermarkets try swapping cashiers for cameras

Several grocers are testing cashierless stores with cameras that track what shoppers pick, so they pay by simply walking out the door

A man strolled down the candy aisle of a grocery store in England last month, picked up a bar of chocolate and stashed it in his back pocket. He wasn’t stealing. Specially equipped surveillance cameras were tracking both his body and the products he was taking off the shelves, to help him pay for them.

Tesco PLC, one of the world’s largest supermarket operators, demonstrated this technology recently to investors, labelling it as one of the retailer’s big ideas for making shopping at its physical stores more convenient. Tesco is one of the several grocers testing cashierless stores with cameras