A Smart Trolley with Payment System using MoMo and Visa card for Convenient Shopping in Ghana
Abstract
The advancement of automation and smart retail technologies has opened new avenues that will improve shopping experience and reduce customer waiting time. A smart trolley with an integrated payment system has been developed to revolutionize the shopping process. At the core of the smart trolley system is the ESP32 microcontroller. It processes the scanned data in real time, calculates the cumulative cost of the items in the trolley, and keeps the customer informed of his or her total expenditure. The trolley is also equipped with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that allows the automatic identification and tracking of products within the store. The system provides immediate feedback through both an audible buzzer and a visual Light-Emitting Diode (LED). A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) mounted on the trolley provides real-time updates, enabling customers to monitor their spending as they shop. Once a customer is done with the shopping, the ESP32 will compile all items purchased, along with their respective costs, and generate a digital receipt. Payment can be made using mobile money (MoMo) or a Visa card. A machine learning-based recommendation model using content-based recommendation was integrated to provide personalized shopping suggestions. An overall recommendation accuracy of 87% was achieved. Results showed that the RFID system successfully scanned and logged 98% of items within the specified range of 5-10 cm from the RFID card reader. The LCD updated the total cost within 1.5 seconds of scanning an item. The experimental results demonstrate that the smart trolley significantly improved shopping efficiency and user satisfaction, indicating strong potential for adoption in modern retail environments. All payment requests transmitted between the mobile application and the Paystack Application Programming Interface (API) were encrypted to prevent unauthorized interception of sensitive financial information during transactions.
