What is retail?
Retail is "the activity of selling goods or services directly to the end consumers" (Fransoo and Honhon 2024, p. 1). Retailing includes "merchandising, customer management, supply chain and inventory planning, product distribution and logistics, pricing, and store operations" (Caro, Kök, and Martínez de Albéniz 2019, p. 47).
What is the Retail Innovation Lab?
Retail Innovation Lab (RIL) is a physical retail store where McGill University’s researchers collaborate with Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT) to design, implement, and test retail innovations, such as self-checkout kiosks, computer vision to improve shoppers’ experience, and robots to serve shoppers.
The Lab opened in August 2021 and is located on the ground floor of the Bronfman Building of McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management (1001 Rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal).
What innovations has the Lab tested?
The RIL opened in August 2021.
Phase I: August 2021 to December 2022
The store was divided into two sections, in true spirit of an experiment (or A/B test).
I. The “Frictionless” Store tested the smart checkout technology, which allowed shoppers to enter by tapping a QR code on the Couche-Tard Connect app, shop as they wanted, and leave. The invoice amount would be debited from the shopper’s account on the Couche-Tard Connect app.
II. The “Regular” Store used the state-of-the-art technology (e.g., cameras to monitor and track consumers).
The successful test led ACT to roll out smart checkout in thousands of its stores globally.
Phase II: January 2023 to February 2023
In January 2023, the Lab tested a hybrid contactless/regular store format across the full store surface. The concept of “Shop, Tap & Go” equipped the store with around 100 cameras to provide shoppers with a touchless experience using autonomous checkout technology. Customers could simply walk in, buy merchandise, and walk out, without needing to scan any merchandise. McGill professors and students used the Lab to research optimizing store layouts and understanding shoppers’ attention patterns and behaviour in convenience stores.
Phase III: February 2024 to date
In February 2024, the Lab re-introduced the smart checkout technology and is leveraging the high-powered cameras to better understand customer journeys and gather engagement insights. A portion of the store is also equipped with electronic shelf labels (ESL) and mini wireless cameras on the shelves that the store team uses in their operations.
Why did McGill choose to partner with Couche-Tard?
Alimentation Couche-Tard is a successful Quebec retailer and a proud member of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management’s Founders' Circle. We are excited to bring this association one step further by enhancing our students’ curriculum with access to concrete and evolving case studies on site and the possibility to test new initiatives and technologies in the laboratory store.
This project is directly in line with McGill University’s mission by contributing to research in the retail sector as well as allowing students to deepen their knowledge in an innovative commercial environment to be better equipped to enter the job market.
Thanks to its multidisciplinary approach, combining elements such as machine learning and business management, the retail innovation lab at the Bensadoun School of Retail Management will provide the ideal environment to foster the development of new initiatives and technologies, in particular by focusing on artificial intelligence, to improve the customer experience for the retail industry.
How does the Couche-Tard Connecté section stand out from what other retailers are already doing?
This is the only retail innovation lab open to the public in Canada, and its partnership between a retailer and an academic institution to develop and test innovations in a real-world store environment is unique in North America. The lab will be a resource for open academic research projects with results made publicly available.
McGill researchers and retail collaborators will be able to understand and improve customer and computer interactions to create an even better customer and employee experience for the future. Within the more traditional area of the store, a self-checkout unit equipped with camera vision automatically detects the items placed on the counter and adds them to the customer’s bill without any scanning involved.
Which students will be using the retail innovation lab and for what purpose?
The retail innovation lab is an important part of the BSRM academic curriculum ranging from theoretical courses to experiential learning opportunities (e.g., case competitions focused on solving real business problems). The lab will support students at all levels (undergraduate, masters, and doctorate).
We currently have students in the BCom concentration and major in Retail Management as well as Master of Management in Retailing (MMR program). In addition, there are MSc and PhD students from both the Desautels Faculty of Management and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering that are involved in the lab’s AI research projects.
How can I get involved with the retail innovation lab?
Research projects
The goal of retail innovation lab is to facilitate multi-disciplinary research across different faculties. Upon submission of the research proposal to the Steering Committee, this will be assessed according to feasibility and joint discussion between Alimentation Couche-Tard and McGill University. Please note that request for funding is available but is not guaranteed.
Third party companies
The retail innovation lab is open to collaborate with other organizations and start-ups to test and implement emerging technologies to support our objective of investigating the future of retail.
