In-store shopping changes when the phone becomes the checkout
With smartphone penetration crossing the halfway point, two new start-ups push to change how we shop in-store.
The shift is simple. The phone is no longer just a companion to shopping. It becomes the point-of-sale, the service layer, and the trigger for fulfillment inside the store.
In omnichannel retail operations, the biggest shopper experience gains often come from removing time sinks like queues and size-hunting, not from adding more screens.
QThru
QThru is a mobile point-of-sale platform that helps consumers at grocery and retail stores to shop, scan and check out using their Android and iOS smartphones…
The ambition is clear. Remove queues. Remove friction.
Shoppers move through the store with the same control they have online. Browse, scan, pay, and leave without the classic checkout bottleneck.
Hointer
Hointer automates jean shopping through QR codes.
When scanned using the store’s app, the jean is delivered in the chosen size to a fitting room in the store and the customer is alerted to which room to visit.
Once the jeans have been tried, customers can either send the jeans back into the system or swipe their card using a machine in each fitting room to make a purchase.
This approach removes two of the most frustrating in-store steps. Finding the right size and waiting to pay.
The store behaves like a responsive system rather than a manual process.
A few fast answers before you act
What is the common idea behind both examples?
They move checkout and fulfillment logic into the shopper’s hands. Scanning, sizing, and payment become distributed across the store journey instead of centralized at a cashier line.
How do QThru and Hointer differ in the problem they solve?
QThru focuses on scan-and-pay to reduce queues. Hointer focuses on discovery and fitting-room fulfillment to remove size-hunting, then completes payment in the fitting room.
What has to be true operationally for checkout-free to work?
The system has to be reliable under load: accurate inventory, fast in-store routing, dependable scanning, and a payment flow that stays simple even when the store is busy.
What is the biggest failure mode teams underestimate?
Edge cases. Mis-scans, out-of-stocks, returns, fraud handling, and staff override paths. If exceptions are painful, the “friction-free” promise collapses at the worst moment.
