News
Carrefour City+ In Mall Of The Emirates Becomes Dubai’s First Contactless Store
Besides the shopping experience, the contactless checkout system also improves the store’s inventory management.
The impact of digital technology on the way we shop has been profound — just consider the fact that we can now order about anything we want online with a few simple clicks and have it shipped from the other side of the world in a few days (if you’re willing to pay for express shipping, of course). Now, shoppers at Carrefour City+ in Mall of the Emirates can simply grab anything they want and leave without going through the traditional checkout process, which, as you probably are personally familiar, can be a painfully slow experience.
“Carrefour City+ has been designed to make life easier by using technology to remove friction and enhance the retail experience,” revealed Hani Weiss, Chief Executive Officer at Majid Al Futtaim Retail. “The store represents a huge leap forwards for retail in the UAE and region as Carrefour continues to innovate to meet the needs of the present whilst anticipating future shopping trends”.

The retail and leisure operator Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) has enabled the first contactless checkout experience in Dubai using artificial intelligence and the current MAF Carrefour App. Here’s how it works in practice:
- A customer enters the store using the MAF Carrefour App.
- The customer can then simply pick any items from the shelves.
- Artificial intelligence identifies each picked item.
- All items are automatically added to a digital shopping basket.
- When the customer walks out of the store, payment is automatically made for the content of the digital shopping basket.
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Carrefour City+ stocks over 1,300 items, including basic food items, ready-to-go meals, and personal hygiene products. Besides the shopping experience, the contactless checkout system also improves the store’s inventory management, ensuring pinpoint accuracy at all times. Does this sound like a shopping experience you’d be interested in?
News
LUVED Is A New Curated Preloved Marketplace For The UAE
Sellers keep 100 percent of every sale and AI can build a listing in five seconds — though the app’s smartest tools are still coming.
Secondhand shopping has become mainstream in the UAE, but the experience is still scattered across resale sites, social media and informal group chats. LUVED, a mobile-first marketplace that launched in Dubai this month, is betting it can pull that activity into one place — and that the thing buyers and sellers actually want is not more inventory, but trust.
The app trades in what it calls circular luxury: preloved fashion and lifestyle pieces across men’s, women’s and children’s categories, bought, sold or given away peer to peer. Its main pitch is economics, with sellers keeping 100 percent of every sale under a zero-commission, fast payout model, while buyers are promised vetted pieces at lower prices.
Where LUVED is staking its reputation is verification. Sellers pass a KYC check, and items run through a two-layer authentication system powered by Entrupy that pairs instant AI screening with human expert review for high-value pieces. Authenticity certificates travel with each item, payments sit in escrow, and a buyer-protection package the company calls The Safety Net adds a 48-hour return window and dispute resolution. Door-to-door logistics removes the in-person meetups that make most resale deals awkward.
An in-app assistant called Luvbot — offering selling insights and demand-based recommendations — is soon to be introduced to the platform. Other features include autofill and dynamic pricing that lets users build a listing in as little as five seconds from three photos, plus a swipe-based feed, story-style drops and in-app chat in English and Arabic. Finally, a gifting layer, Luved & Gifted, lets users pass items to others inside the app rather than sell them.
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“After moving to Dubai, I saw how difficult it was to sell or even give things away,” says founder and CEO Shaima Sibtain. The friction is real, and so is the competition. In resale, trust is won transaction by transaction — and that is the test LUVED has set itself.
The app is live on the App Store now, with Google Play to follow. The company also plans to expand across the region, which will be the real test for a marketplace staking everything on trust.
