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Digitalization and big data are continuing to revolutionize industries impacting the global economy, environment, and society as a whole. The retail industry is not an exception and is facing a paradigm shift in many aspects of its operations. One of the latest innovations in this industry is the development of unmanned stores concepts and business models. These novel business models are mostly used in the grocery stores segment with an impetus to eliminate the need for check-out lines and to create more efficiencies in the whole process of the shopping experience. Because of the disruptive nature of this business model, it is important to research the effects of its expansion into society. In this article, we are making a critical analysis of the sustainability impact of unmanned stores and assess the strategic direction and growth strategies of major corporations and organizations within the value chain. We used an unambiguous and straightforward questionnaire as the research tool and the results show grocery as the current target for expansion, however, future expectations from business developers lean heavily towards coffee and books. Interestingly, the investment logic for expected benefits from the participants seemed to be biased towards efficiencies and the value chain benefits seemed to mostly come from the use of big data and data analytics. The most important use of the data was associated with the dynamic pricing models. Additionally, our study shows interesting insight for example to the growth segments, the role of sustainability, and barriers of entry., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.)