Lush, known for its eco-friendly naked (packaging-free) cosmetics like bath bombs and shampoo bars, faced a big problem: how to scan products that don’t have barcodes.
Cashiers had to manually enter product codes from memory, which made checkout slow—especially during busy times.
To fix this, Lush teamed up with Google Cloud and used the same AI they’ve already built into their Lush Lens app. This AI-powered scanner, trained using Google Cloud’s image storage and Vertex AI (with Google’s Gemini model), was installed right at the store tills. Cashiers simply hold a product up to a camera, and the AI instantly identifies it and adds it to the basket with a split-second scan.
The results have been impressive:
- At busy stores like Glasgow during Christmas, wait times dropped from way out the door to about three minutes.
- Lush stopped wasting water during product demos—saving roughly 440,000 liters.
- New employees learn to use the system faster, and people with conditions like dyslexia feel more included.
- Checkout mistakes went down and inventory tracking became more accurate.
Instead of slowing things down, Lush’s AI checkout makes everything smoother and more efficient. It fits their mission of sustainability and helps both customers and staff. By using smart technology, they’ve created a faster, greener, and smarter shopping experience.
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