Commenting on the teething issues surrounding unmanned shops, SMU Lee Kong Chian Professor of Marketing Kapil Tuli said the technology has not caught up with the promises of artificial intelligence-operated shops, including cost savings from not having to hire people to man the shops round the clock. Although unmanned stores require no queueing, most customers still need the security of having a person to speak to about products. Human staff are also important to maintain order in shops, he added. Even so, Singapore offers companies a promising test bed for such systems as shoppers here are tech-savvy and generally well behaved, he said. “There will always be a quest to get unmanned stores right because of the immense cost benefits,” he added.
