Sector deep dive
Retail click-and-collect
Collection works when the store knows the customer has arrived and trusts that the person at the kerb owns the order. Today the first usually depends on the customer announcing themselves, and the second is barely checked at all. Trust App's patented method could address both.
How click-and-collect works today
A customer orders online and chooses collection: at a desk in store, at a locker, or from their car in a collection bay. On arrival they announce themselves, by tapping a button in an app, phoning a number on a sign, or queueing at the desk. Staff then fetch the order, walk it out, and hand it over, usually against an order number or a name rather than any real check of identity. Grocery collections add chilled and frozen goods, which cannot sit at the kerb waiting.
Some operators add plate recognition to spot an arriving collection vehicle automatically. That helps when the read succeeds and when the customer arrives in the car they registered, and it says nothing about who is inside.
Where the plate-only model hurts
Arrival is announced, not detected
The store usually learns a collection customer has arrived only when the customer says so, in an app, on the phone or at the desk. Orders are fetched on demand while the customer sits and waits, and the promised convenience leaks away in the car park.
Handover without verification
Staff walking an order to a car have no easy way to confirm the person in front of them owns it. A name and an order number are easy to overhear or guess, so handover rests on goodwill rather than any check that would stand up afterwards.
Plate detection fails when the read fails
Where arrival detection relies on cameras alone, a dirty, obscured or misread plate means the system never sees the customer arrive. The order sits inside, the customer sits outside, and the failure looks like poor service rather than a camera problem.
Different car, different driver
Collections are routinely made by a partner, a parent or a colleague, often in a different car from the one on the order. Plate-based matching breaks the moment the vehicle is not the one expected, even when the collection itself is perfectly legitimate.
What matters in this sector
For a retailer, the technology question is secondary. What matters is what the collection service has to achieve, what gets in the way, and what could improve.
What you need to achieve
Hand the right order to the right person quickly, keep kerbside and car-park bays turning over, protect chilled goods, and make collection feel effortless enough that customers choose it again.
What gets in the way
Customers waiting while orders are fetched on demand, no practical way to verify the person at handover, plate detection that fails with the read, and legitimate collections by family members that the system cannot match.
What could improve
Arrivals detected rather than announced, orders staged before the customer reaches the door, handovers made with confidence to a verified owner, and a collection journey that asks nothing of the customer on arrival.
How the patented method could apply
- Arrival detected, not announced. A registered customer arriving for collection could be detected automatically, with both the vehicle and the person's registered device recognised together, rather than the plate alone.
- Orders ready before the door. With arrival detected as the vehicle enters the site, staff could begin preparing the order before the customer reaches the door or the bay, which may cut the wait at handover.
- Confident kerbside handover. Staff could hand an order to a person verified as the order's owner, rather than to whoever answers to a name, giving both sides a firmer basis than an order number read aloud.
- Nothing to do on arrival. Because recognition happens automatically, the customer would not need to open an app, tap a button or phone a number when they arrive.
Each of these would be built by or with a partner into the retailer's existing order-management and fulfilment systems. None of them exists as a Trust product today, and the precise design would depend on the retailer, its sites and its suppliers.
Who we would like to speak to
Conversations in this sector are likely to be most productive with:
- retailers offering kerbside, car-park or in-store collection;
- grocery operators running collection services;
- click-and-collect platform providers;
- car-park operators serving retail sites.
This page describes potential applications of a patented method. It does not describe an existing product or a live deployment, and commercial arrangements would be subject to discussion and legal agreement.