Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, will be adding five checkout-free concession stands using technology from Zippin, a San Mateo, Calif.-based startup. According to Zippin and the Titans, the stores will be ready for operation by the NFL preseason games this summer.
Zippin, the leader in the checkout-free sports stadium concession stand race, now has 30 stadium stores by our latest count. All of Zippin’s stadium stores are in pro sports venues at the moment. Amazon, whose Just Walk Out stores offer a similar experience, is Zippin’s closest competitor in the stadium checkout-free market, with 14 announced or open deployments. Amazon recently announced that its technology will be used in three stores at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field, scheduled to open by the time the 2022 football season starts.
At Nissan Stadium, Zippin said all its new stores will all be of a smaller variety, more like a “lane” where fans walk by coolers and shelves in a straight line. Gary Jacobus, senior vice president of business development, said in a recent interview that two similar “lane” stores installed at the New Jersey Nets’ Barclays Center “took over some empty space” and now see can see as much as $10,000 in business per game. Zippin also has larger stores in other stadiums with more items to choose from.
“At Nissan Stadium we’re always looking for ways to offer our fans the greatest level of convenience and ease of purchase,” said Adam Nuse, Titans senior vice president of business operations, in a prepared statement. “Working with Zippin will offer our fans a quick and easy way to grab the food and drink items they need.” According to the team, the stores will be operated by catering and hospitality concerns Levy and Legends.
Checkout-free shopping payment systems, where customers enter stores by scanning a credit card or some other pre-authorization method and then simply take items off shelves and are charged automatically as they leave the store, are starting to multiply quickly, with more sports stadium announcements expected this summer ahead of football season. In addition to Zippin and Amazon, other players in the space include another startup, AiFi, which has placed “pop-up” type checkout-free stores at several stadiums and events like concerts, and Standard AI, which has a store at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
