A Smart Shopping Cart: Shopper®

This study presents the design and development of Shopper®, a smart shopping cart system that integrates embedded hardware, computer vision, and real-time localization technologies to enhance the in-store shopping experience. The system combines a custom control panel, dual-camera based barcode recognition architecture, loadcell weight tracking, and a mobile-based authentication mechanism. The Shopper® autonomously verifies items, updates shopping cart contents, and initiates automatic checkout when reaching designated payment zones. By merging user experience design (UX) principles with embedded IoT hardware, the solution reduces queue times and enriches the consumer’s shopping journey. The results indicate a significant improvement in transaction speed and customer satisfaction, supporting the viability of smart carts as an effective bridge between physical and digital retail ecosystems.