Japan CAINZ Yoshikawa Minami: Creating a 24/7 AI Mobile Store for Home Improvement Retail

Customer Requirements

Home improvement retail is changing.

Customers no longer only visit large stores for planned weekend purchases. They may need small tools, household items, repair parts, gardening products, batteries, cleaning supplies, drinks, snacks, or daily essentials at unexpected moments.

For CAINZ in Yoshikawa Minami, Saitama, the challenge was to explore a smarter and more flexible retail format: a compact mobile store that could operate 24 hours a day, serve customers with less checkout friction, and extend the CAINZ shopping experience beyond the traditional big-box store.

The project needed to address several key needs:

1. 24-hour access to useful products
   Customers may need daily goods or home improvement items outside normal staffed store hours.
2. A compact store format
   Instead of relying only on large retail buildings, CAINZ needed a smaller store model that could be placed near customer flow and community demand.
3. Cashier-free convenience
   The shopping process needed to be simple: enter, pick products, and leave without waiting in a checkout line.
4. Flexible container deployment
   A container-style store could support faster site setup and future expansion into different commercial and community scenarios.
5. A new smart retail model for home improvement
   The project needed to show that AI unmanned retail can support not only food and beverage categories, but also home improvement and lifestyle retail.

To meet these goals, CAINZ introduced the CAINZ Mobile Store in Yoshikawa Minami with Cloudpick’s AI-powered unmanned retail technology.

Cloudpick Solution

Cloudpick provided the AI-powered unmanned retail technology behind CAINZ Mobile Store, combining computer vision, smart sensing, access control, automated checkout, and real-time backend management.

The shopping journey is designed to be simple:

Enter the store
Customers access the store through a controlled entrance.

Pick products freely
Inside the store, customers can browse open shelves and select household goods, small tools, daily essentials, packaged products, snacks, drinks, and other high-frequency items.

Walk out naturally
After choosing the products they need, customers leave without scanning every item manually or waiting for a cashier.

Automatic recognition and settlement
Cloudpick’s AI system identifies the selected products, generates the order, and supports automated payment and backend data updates.

This creates a true cashier-free Grab & Go experience.

The CAINZ Mobile Store uses a container-style structure, making it different from a conventional store. It can be placed in outdoor commercial areas, store parking lots, residential communities, event spaces, roadside locations, and other places where customers may need quick access to daily and home-related products.

Compared with vending machines, the store provides a broader product range and a more natural browsing experience. Compared with a traditional staffed counter, it reduces checkout dependency and supports longer service hours with lighter operation.

For CAINZ, this model also creates a new retail experiment. The store is not only a convenience point. It is a test of how home improvement brands can use AI, automation, and modular spaces to serve customers in more flexible ways.

Video

To see the CAINZ Mobile Store in Yoshikawa Minami in action, watch the video below:

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df8ybNdjVQo

Result

The CAINZ Mobile Store in Yoshikawa Minami demonstrates how AI unmanned retail can expand the possibilities of home improvement retail.

For customers, the value is immediate. They can access useful products at any time, enter the store, pick what they need, and leave without waiting at a checkout counter. The store turns a compact container space into a 24-hour shopping point that is close, practical, and easy to use.

For operators, the benefits are broader:

1. 24/7 retail availability
   The store can serve customers beyond traditional operating hours with less dependence on cashier staffing.
2. Flexible site deployment
   The container-style structure can be placed in outdoor spaces, store-front areas, parking lots, residential zones, and event locations.
3. Lower checkout dependency
   AI recognition and automated settlement reduce repetitive cashier work and support lighter daily operation.
4. More product variety than vending machines
   Open shelves allow customers to browse home improvement items, daily essentials, drinks, snacks, and lifestyle products more naturally.
5. Real-time digital operation
   Sales, product movement, and inventory changes can be recorded automatically, helping operators improve replenishment and product selection.
6. A new model for home improvement convenience
   The same format can support future deployment around communities, roadside areas, worksites, campuses, and other high-frequency demand points.

Most importantly, the project shows that unmanned retail is not limited to convenience stores. With the right technology and store format, AI-powered retail can also support home improvement brands, community services, and 24-hour lifestyle needs.

By working with Cloudpick, CAINZ Mobile Store in Yoshikawa Minami creates a practical model for the next generation of smart retail: modular, cashier-free, always available, and closer to everyday customer needs.

Customer Testimonial

A representative from the project said:

“Customers today expect retail to be more flexible, closer, and available when they need it. With Cloudpick’s AI-powered unmanned store technology, CAINZ Mobile Store creates a 24-hour cashier-free shopping experience in a compact container format. This project gives us a valuable reference for future smart retail deployment in home improvement, community retail, and outdoor commercial scenarios.”