SmartStores, unmanned stores and vending machines - prospects for the grocery retail of the future in rural regions

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ulrich Jürgens
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558573406

In recent times, it is digitalization in particular that is triggering innovative thrusts in retail beyond e-commerce. Phygital environments are emerging that blend the physical space of a traditional store with digital applications in the form of modern technologies and bring together online and offline worlds for a "hybrid customer journey". These developments manifest themselves in the form of unmanned stores and vending machine stores that use the full range of technological advances to continue to offer customers a personalized shopping experience, but one that is based on technical convenience and technical service and no longer (only) on personal service by employees. This stage of retail development is characterized as Retail 4.0, which includes the networking of devices via the internet, the collection and processing of big data, cloud computing, the use of artificial and augmented realities, e.g. in the form of artificial language and images. Unmanned stores have only been around for a few years. In Germany, only pilot stores of supermarkets and discounters exist so far in the form of so-called autonomous high-tech stores. The situation is different with so-called semi-autonomous low-tech stores and vending machines (regiomats) without sensors, which are expanding in rural regions of Germany and opening up new opportunities for the provision of basic services to the population in peripheral areas. What these facilities have in common is a continuous opening on a "small" sales area of up to a few 100 square meters, no staff, self-checkout by the customer, cashless payment and prior customer registration via an app on private digital devices. This article aims to identify not only effective and potential consumers in a consolidating system of hybrid stores, but also reasons for rejection and reactance towards digital solutions among the test subjects. Theories of consumer and social psychology such as the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) or the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) can help to reveal not only the entrenched attitudes of test subjects towards consumption or technical innovations, but also to explain visible and spatially varying behavioral and purchasing practices. It is investigated a) which customer clientele feels addressed by the tech-savvy concept of unmanned stores and in which spatial structures and competitive networks of other (food) providers the customers operate; b) which location considerations on the part of store developers, store operators and other stakeholders contribute to the opening of a 4.0 store; c) to what extent the village store 4.0 can fill a niche in competition with discounters and supermarkets via smart technology.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants