Fall 2023 Campus Dining Today - 36

UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON
Retail tech allows
shoppers to skip the
check out
Students at the University of Dayton (UD) are
adjusting to a new normal in their experience
of retail after a recent renovation on campus.
The Emporium, a convenience store located
in Marianist Hall next to UD's bookstore,
reopened in the spring with a cutting-edge
new technology that its implementers believe
could be the future of retail.
Just Walk Out technology by Amazon is just
what it sounds like, enabling a shopper to enter
the store with the university's dining app, grab
what they want, and leave the store without
stopping to check out. According to Amazon,
it leverages computer vision, sensor fusion, and
deep learning.
When the Emporium opened on May 1, it
was the first location in Ohio, the second
convenience-style location at an institution
of higher education, and-at 1,200 square
feet-one of the largest third-party stores in
the U.S. to operate with Amazon's new retail
technology.
Emporium Manager Torrence Cohen
said while the technology is very easy
to use, the greatest challenge has been
" reprogramming " people.
" The technology is called 'just walk out,'
right? But literally every day, people ask, 'I
just walk out with this?' Yup. You simply leave
the store. There's no cash register, there's no
cashier. I think it will probably take a little
time for people to wrap their heads around
it, " Cohen said. " But it's fascinating. People
seem to really like it so far. "
UD started looking into the technology after
the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall of 2021,
said Dining Services Executive Director Joan
Bauman. Outside of the higher ed context,
the technology has been deployed mainly in
airports, stadiums, and arenas.
" We knew we were going to remodel the
Emporium space, and after COVID, we
realized how hard it was to get staff, and
students wanted contactless, " Bauman said.
" We had tried some self-checkout because
we didn't have cashiers. That worked
well, and students liked it. "
As they started exploring the Just
Walk Out technology, their number
one priority was that students
could pay for it with their meal plan,
Bauman said. UD has for 20 years
contracted with CBORD, a software
and technology company specializing
in food service payment systems, so
the new technology would need to
integrate with their existing payment
structure.
" We had reached out to several
companies that had this type of
technology, and none of them could
meet our main priority, " Bauman said.
" The only one that reached back out
was Amazon. "
36
CAMPUS DINING TODAY | RENOVATIONS, RESTORATIONS, AND OVERHAULS
RENOVATIONS,
RESTORATIONS,
a overhaulsnd
Fall 2023 Campus Dining Today

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