Shoppers at a supermarket in Beijing can now pay for their groceries using nothing but their face. 7-FRESH, a supermarket operated by Chinese e-commerce giant JD-dot-com, is testing out automated checkouts which use facial recognition. Jiang Shaoyi has more.

You may not be as famous as this face here, but in this supermarket, you'll surely be recognized. With no human cashier nearby, a camera reads the price tag, while a second one scans your face and matches it to your registered account. After entering a mobile phone number to charge the account, the transaction is completed in just a few seconds.

SUN JI CUSTOMER "It is quite easy to use, and is more convenient. I do not have to line up."

Automated checkouts using facial recognition are one of a series of innovations JD-dot-com is testing at 7-FRESH. But it's not the first in the retail industry. Last year, Alibaba's Alipay rolled out the world's first "Smile to Pay" facial recognition system at a KFC outlet in east China's Hangzhou city. Technology analyst and entrepreneur Zhuang Shuai gives a hint of the reason behind why Chinese people are embracing the technology.

ZHUANG SHUAI TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEUR AND BLOGER, MALE, CHINESE "As you know, compared with other nationalities, Chinese people are braver and more interested in trying new things. Speaking of privacy, we don't give much importance to it or consider it crucial in our lives."

Facial recognition technology in China is already far beyond most people's expectations. It helps police in criminal investigations and even stops people from taking excessive amounts of toilet paper. Zhang Shuai says that's because duplicating people's faces is not an easy job.

ZHUANG SHUAI TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEUR AND BLOGER, MALE, CHINESE "We can easily obtain others' fingerprints from where they pressed their fingers, but it's hard to do so with people's faces. So I think it is expected to be used broadly in this respect."

But he cautions the hardware and software of the technology is still in an early stage of development and has a long way to go. JSY, CGTN.