Seattle startup Qthru lets you skip the grocery store checkout line

 Qthru, an app and checkout kiosk system for retail and grocery stores that he hopes will revolutionize the way we shop and check out of stores.

“We went with the simplest technology available,” Roberts said. “There’s no new technology required from the store.”

Basically, the app uses a smartphone camera to scan bar codes on store shelves, much the same way apps like RedLaser do, and then put those items into a digital shopping cart. After a customer is done shopping, he or she walks up to the checkout kiosk, taps the button on the app, enters a PIN and the system charges the customer’s pre-entered credit card. Then, the kiosk spits out a receipt, a store employee checks the customer’s bag to make sure the items match the receipt, and the customer leaves.

No lines. No fighting with difficult-to-use self-checkout systems. No waiting.

A beta version of the Qthru system is currently being tested at the Snoqualmie Ridge IGA, where a select group of people have been using the app to check out.

For Tyler Myers, who owns the Snoqualmie IGA, four other IGA stores and a hardware store, the Qthru app has a variety of potential uses in addition to making it easier for people to check out.

“There’s a lot to be done with coupon and suggestive selling,” Myers said.

Myers said a store could use the app to suggest a wine to go with a piece of meat the customer scanned, or if a customer scans Heinz ketchup, but the Hunt's ketchup is on sale, the app would alert the customer to the possible savings or coupon.

One tricky thing Qthru had to overcome when creating the system was how to deal with weight-based items such as fruit or self-serve coffee beans. So Qthru introduced a scale that weighs the produce or bulk items to be purchased and spits out a receipt, which can then be scanned.

The app also alerts an employee if the customer is purchasing alcohol so that the employee can check the customer’s age before he or she leaves.

Roberts said Qthru is prepared for near-field communication systems that will allow people to use their smartphones as wallets. The system will let customers scan anything with a built-in RFID chip, if products start embedding them, and the kiosks have NFC technology already built in.

“The cost of NFC is coming down, but it’s still expensive,” Roberts said.

In the next week or so, Qthru will roll out the app for the iPhone, which will be quickly followed by Android and Windows Phone apps. Meanwhile, the company is installing the kiosks in the rest of Myers' stores, including the downtown Kress IGA at Third Avenue and Pike Street. Roberts hopes it catches on and other retailers sign on. The company just received an infusion of $3.5 million from several out-of-state investors that did not want their names released.

For Roberts, an entrepreneur with 10 years of experience at Research in Motion (RIM), this is the realization of a dream.