TCU’s cashier-less campus convenience store wins converts after early skepticism
Walk in. Scan your card. Grab your items. Walk out. No chitchat, no hassle. What you need, when you need it. What could be better?
Since late last year, the Shoppe at Wright, a 24-hour cashier-less corner store on TCU’s campus, has been gaining converts among students who love the convenience and the selection, and who are getting more comfortable each day with the place’s futuristic vibe.
From the outside, it looks like any other small neighborhood market. Walk through the doors, though, and you immediately see the difference. To gain access, shoppers scan either a TCU student ID or a credit card. A gate then opens and you’re free to peruse the aisles of snacks, beverages, groceries, toiletries and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals while 96 cameras above track your movements. Sensors on the shelves are activated when an item is selected, and you’re charged as you exit.
Student Katherine Pavliska said she’d visited the Shoppe at Wright about 10 times since it opened. She was skeptical at first, but she quickly learned to embrace the store’s technology.
“It’s interesting how there’s nobody to check you out,” she said, adding that after she got used to that, she hardly thinks about it anymore. Pavliska also said the variety of products is better than what students had at a previous mini-mart located at the Brown-Lupton University Union, the campus’s central dining hall.
The Shoppe at Wright is located on the ground floor of the Wright Media Center adjacent Frog Fountain just off one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares on campus. Pfluger Architects designed the space, and it’s managed by Sodexo, TCU’s food service partner. Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology powers the Shoppe at Wright. Although it resembles an Amazon Go cashier-less shop, there is no Amazon branding.
Miles Oller, TCU’s director of facilities for student affairs, said the store was created in response to student demand.
“We partnered with Sodexo and did a bunch of surveys, and we kept hearing that students wanted convenience,” said Oller. “They wanted late-night options — safe late-night options — for sundries and things like medicine. If someone, say, lost a toothbrush, they don’t want to walk to Kroger. This is safe and convenient.”
First cashier-less campus store in Texas
The Shoppe at Wright is the first of its kind on a college campus in Texas. When asked how TCU ended up at the forefront of this brave new world of commerce, Oller gave the credit to Sodexo for bringing the idea to the university. After visiting a similar setup at the University of Denver, Oller and his colleagues were sold.
With the growth of AI, it’s easy to assume things like cashier-less stores are the wave of the future, but reports of the death of traditional retail may be greatly exaggerated. In 2023, there were around 30 Amazon Go convenience stores across the country. Today, there are 15 stores, mostly in Chicago, New York and Seattle.
Similarly, a BBC story published last year pointed out the fact that chains like Walmart have recently scaled back self-checkout kiosks. The article cited a 2021 survey showing consumer frustration with the technology. Still, that same survey indicated that a vast majority of consumers use the self-checkout option at least some of the time, and 65% would welcome being able to use a smartphone to check out, which isn’t all that different from what’s happening at the Shoppe at Wright.
Either way, TCU’s little robo-market seems to be a hit. Oller said he and the school’s Sodexo team will assess the business model after the spring semester and make tweaks to product offerings to ensure students continue getting the most out of it.
This story was originally published March 26, 2025 at 11:29 AM.