Abstract: A quick-stop mass retail system for ordering and purchasing articles from a remote location for pickup at an article pickup area at an automated store, comprising an interactive system for communicating a customer's purchase order for at least one article; a host computer adapted for receiving the customer's purchase order, processing the customer's purchase order, and storing the customer's purchase order in a database; a system for rapidly retrieving the article ordered by the customer from a storage location for the article at the automated store in response to customer purchase order information received from the host computer; and a system for retrieving identification information from the customer and communicating the same to the host computer; whereby the host computer enables the system for retrieving the article to provide the article to the article pickup area upon obtaining the identification information and comparing the identification information with the stored information in the customer's pur

Abstract: The present invention provides a system and method for computer-controlled, automated shopping which enables an authorized customer to order an article from a central processing center and have the article automatically delivered via an underground tunnel network.

Abstract: A system for operator-unassisted checkout of randomly disposed articles in a container in a checkout area of a supermarket or the like, performed without contacting the articles in the container, includes, associated with each article, respective transmitters for transmitting product-identifying data upon actuation and then deactuating itself. Associated with the checkout area are actuators for actuating all of the transmitters in the container and a receiver for receiving the transmitted product-identifying data from each article in the container in turn and identifying the total cost of the articles in the container.

Abstract: A system for operator-unassisted checkout of randomly disposed articles in a container in a checkout area of a supermarket or the like, performed without contacting the articles in the container, includes, associated with each article, respective transmitters for transmitting product-identifying data upon actuation and then deactuating itself. Associated with the checkout area are actuators for actuating all of the transmitters in the container and a receiver for receiving the transmitted product-identifying data from each article in the container in turn and identifying the total cost of the articles in the container.