Consumer Barometer 01/2025 - Stores without staff: autonomous shops

The brick-and-mortar retail sector in Germany is undergoing a comprehensive transformation: the industry is using innovative technologies to redesign traditional shops and counter the labour shortage. Process automation helps to remain efficient and competitive. Online shopping as an alternative to bricks-and-mortar shopping has become the norm for many consumers.

In rural regions, retailers are increasingly turning to an innovative concept for local supply: autonomous shops that rely partly or even exclusively on automated systems for the shopping process are a modern, technology-based alternative to traditional shops. Artificial intelligence is used to advise and assist customers: AI-based systems analyse the preferences and behaviour of customers in real time and offer personalised product recommendations and assistance.

For the current issue of the Consumer Barometers we analysed both the technological and consumer-related challenges and opportunities of these innovative shopping concepts. A particular focus is on the question of how barriers to acceptance can be overcome - in order to establish autonomous shops not just as a supplement, but as a sustainable long-term solution for local supply and to meet the requirements of customers.

The brick-and-mortar retail sector in Germany is undergoing a comprehensive transformation: the industry is using innovative technologies to redesign traditional shops and counter the labour shortage. Process automation helps to remain efficient and competitive. Online shopping as an alternative to bricks-and-mortar shopping has become the norm for many consumers.

• 80 per cent with a very high online orientation in their shopping behaviour can imagine using an autonomous shop.
• 75 per cent in urban areas consider the use of an autonomous shop to be conceivable, while this figure drops to 56 per cent in very rural residential situations.
• 75 per cent of those who visit bricks-and-mortar retail outlets every day can imagine using an autonomous shop.
• 54 per cent can generally imagine preferring an autonomous shop to a traditional shop in the future.
• 15 per cent have already used an autonomous shop.

 
All results as well as detailed graphics and analyses can be found in the current Consumer Barometer. Download the analyses download now and find out more about the advantages and disadvantages of autonomous shops as well as the potential and challenges.  

For this edition of the Consumer Barometer, the EHI Retail Institute Cologne conducted a short survey of 1,000 consumers and analysed the data for KPMG.