How Retail Media Can Monetize Retail Stores' Highest-Intent Screens

*original article featured on Forbes

Retail Media has earned its reputation as one of the fastest‑growing and most resilient ad channels, and the next playground is the physical store. Smart Carts, Scan and Go Apps, Handheld Scanners, and charging stations create new surfaces for real‑time, context‑driven media.

For example, imagine tapping into a cart or app and starting to scan your groceries. As milk goes in, a short, quiet banner suggests cereal you often buy two aisles away, and a recipe card appears with a 10‑minute breakfast idea. Near the snack aisle, the screen nudges a limited‑time coupon for a brand you follow. At produce, it reminds you that you’re one item shy of a bundle discount, shows the shelf location, and offers to add it. One tap and you’re guided there.

But is simply adding more screens across aisles enough? Most of us in the industry have seen the evidence that impact comes from delivering personalized, contextually relevant content at the right time. Without precision, much of the potential remains untapped.

A New Battleground At The Point-Of-Purchase Decision

Self-Checkout touchpoints, like Smart Carts or mobile Scan and Go apps, can unlock a powerful opportunity for in-store Retail Media. Retailers can leverage screens that shoppers already engage with throughout their entire journey. There's no extra hardware, no new touchpoints, just personalized promotions in real time, hitting at the exact moment of decision.

Reports indicate a key fact: Around 80% of grocery purchases are still made in-store. In other words, the influence of in-aisle marketing matters most when shoppers are seconds from making a purchase, making Self-Checkout surfaces (such as Smart Carts, mobile phones, or dedicated handhelds for Scan and Go or Self-Checkout Kiosks) uniquely powerful, especially in grocery.

Retail Media That Moves With The Shopper

Signals like scanned items, basket composition, and aisle position can now be used for time-assistive prompts, delivering real-time, context-driven content, capabilities once limited to e-commerce.

The commercial benefit for retailers is twofold: new media revenue from high-intent, point-of-decision placements and detailed ad measurement and customer analytics that brands will actually pay for. The industry expects store investment, but measurement and automation still need work. This is another reason to prioritize these transactional surfaces first.

Assistance Outgrows Advertising

The best ads should feel like assistance, not advertising.

Digital shopping assistants should be timely, relevant and respectful of the user's attention. They should cap frequency, use context cues and offer a clear value exchange (e.g., recipes, timely coupons, etc.).

It's also important to resist the notion of “just add more screens.” Prioritize high-intent placements in your stores. Less is more, and not all screens are equal. Timing, UX and personalization win the shelf. Understanding this is critical because the moment customers choose is still where most purchases are won or lost.

Smart Carts: Bigger Screens For Bigger Baskets?

Smart Carts are especially compelling, with persistent, large-format screens, self-scanning capabilities, and integrated payment directly on the cart. From first scan to payment, Smart Carts host context-aware guidance and measurable promotions. They naturally become high-quality homes for sponsored products and personalization.

Because the cart is both the shopping interface and the ad surface, modern management consoles can link impression-level delivery to transactions, addressing a classic objection to in-store media: attribution. The benefit? E-commerce KPIs, such as units per transaction, average order value and conversion rate, suddenly become visible directly in stores.

Paths To Basket Growth

As the chief commercial officer for a company that offers safe Self-Checkout solutions that help retail brands in Europe, North America and the APAC region create experiences, here are five formats I see that reliably grow baskets:

Recipes And Inspiration: Provide helpful meal ideas based on items in the shopping cart or other triggers.
Recommendations And Reminders: Highlight highly recommended add-ons and commonly forgotten essentials, just like online.
Product Alternatives: Display alternative products from paying CPG brands on the screen, or recommend suitable substitutes if an item is unavailable.
Coupons And Sponsored Offers: Relevant offers prioritized by time of day, season or region so they appear when they are most useful.
In-Store Navigation: This involves guiding shoppers to the correct aisle or zone for suggested items, reducing friction and improving follow-through. This works especially well when using ESL tags.

When coupled with strategic UX design, including frequency limits, clear value exchange and an assistant-like tone of voice, these elements can grow baskets without adding friction.

Restraints (And How Leaders Can Mitigate Them)

Privacy And Security: Smart Carts can access sensitive data. Leading solutions adopt a privacy-by-design approach, minimize personally identifiable information for loss prevention and ensure compliant processing and storage.
Scanning Accuracy: Pure vision or weight-based systems still have room for improvement in difficult cases. Shopper-led scanning augmented by computer vision and gentle prompts (“Did you forget to scan?”) improves accuracy and loss prevention.

Trends for 2025 and Beyond

Even though Retail Media budgets continue to rise, buyers still want better measurement and automation. I believe that those who solve this will win market share.

I also think it's really important to start small and scale smart. Results come from strategy: proper placements, a high-quality UX that feels like a digital shopping assistant (not intrusive ads) and a disciplined test-and-learn approach.

My last piece of advice would be to unify data and analytics. Real-time analytics, dwell-time insights and unified stacks tie media to merchandising and inventory, which can increase both shopper value and monetization.

The Bottom Line

In-store Retail Media at Self-Checkout aligns attention, context and action.

As loyalty, analytics and Retail Media networks integrate, expect carts to move from pilot to fleet, and in-store Retail Media to become a durable growth engine for retailers and brands.