Pick n Pay takes AI into the aisles after a 30% time saving
JOHANNESBURG — Pick n Pay is rolling out OrderGrid’s software to more than 720 stores after a pilot cut the average time staff spent picking an online grocery order by about 30%, according to the retailer. The figure measures the time it took staff to collect items from the shelves. For customers using the asap! delivery service, the broader test is whether more of the groceries they order reach them on time.
The rollout follows a 35.4% rise in Pick n Pay’s online grocery sales in the 26 weeks to 30 August. Enrico Ferigolli, the retailer’s executive responsible for shopping across its stores and digital channels, identified larger baskets as a priority. Every item in those orders has to be located and collected, making the accuracy of stock records and the route a picker takes through the store particularly important.
What happens after Penny builds the basket
In July, Pick n Pay introduced Penny, a shopping assistant powered by Google’s Gemini models. A customer can speak a shopping list, type a request or submit a photograph to build a basket in the asap! app. Pick n Pay says Penny accepts voice requests in the shopper’s preferred language, allowing someone planning a meal to ask for ingredients without searching for each product individually.
OrderGrid takes on the next part of the job. Its software gives store teams a current view of stock and incoming orders and helps them anticipate demand. Pick n Pay already uses computer vision to identify gaps on shelves and machine learning to plan picking routes. Together, those tools address two problems familiar to online shoppers: an item that appeared available when they ordered can be missing from the shelf, and a large order can take longer to assemble.
The expansion is the final stage of a two-year overhaul of Pick n Pay’s retail technology. The pilot gives the company a benchmark for picking speed. The next measure of its value will be whether stores can sustain that gain across the network as online sales grow, while filling larger baskets with the products customers chose.
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