Easing Friction with Self-Checkout

LONDON—Making the checkout process quicker and easier to navigate for customers is a constant goal for convenience retailers, and many have adopted self-checkout capabilities in their stores. At the NACS Convenience Summit Europe last week, executives with SPAR International and Reitan Convenience Denmark (winner of the NACS International Retailer of the Year award) shared their experiences with attendees at a session titled “The Many Dimensions of Self Checkouts—How New Technology Disrupts and Supports New Retail.”

Gary Harris, head of brand at SPAR International, shared the company’s university student-focused store concept, which has a decidedly fresh Gen Z look and feel that is unique to this format of stores in the company’s portfolio—and is cashless.

“Obviously we’d all like to be Amazon Go,” Harris said. “Particularly for Western Europe, it’s a very high investment due to legacy [computer] systems.” Scan and go using a smartphone app is a move in that direction and is relatively easy to implement, Harris said.

Brightly colored signs with clever messages greet student shoppers at SPAR Netherlands University c-stores. The tone of voice is informal. One sign reads: “Eat here or we’ll both starve.” SPAR aims to “create a relationship and an experience with them,” Harris said.

Social media is carried into the store, with signs inviting students to connect with CampusLife on Facebook and Twitter.

“Self-service is interwoven in the store as it is with these customers,” Harris said. Shoppers select grab-and-go items like salads, drinks and pastries, scan the items and pay for them with their smartphones using a mobile payment feature that’s part of the university store app. No need to checkout at a register.

For shoppers who prefer paying by card, self-checkout pods are available, and a cashier is on hand for behind-the-counter cigarette sales.

SPAR has implemented various self-checkout options throughout its stores worldwide. In India, for instance, shoppers can checkout using a mobile app on their smartphone, checkout with a staff member via smartphone app, or go to a self-checkout kiosk to complete their purchase.

Sóren Birkstróm, CIO, and Jesper Østergaard, CEO, Reitan Convenience Denmark, shared how the company has implemented reversible-touchscreen checkout kiosks in its 7-Eleven stores in Sweden.

In front of the counter, customers can use the screens as self-checkout stations—or behind the counter a clerk can flip them around and use the same system in a more traditional checkout queue.

Convenience stores in most cases have limited floor space, and “Our solution is re-using the traditional point of sale (POS) unit located at the cashier line,” Birkstróm explained. All POS units are now always open and availed for our customers, with or without staff.”

The units have freed up staff to focus on other things—and reduced checkout times for customers. “We had a lot of customers where we could see that speed was very important,” Birkstróm said, especially for hospital workers and students. There was an initial learning curve in terms of educating customers about the new self-checkout process, but they quickly caught on. The next step might be adding a system that lets customers use their mobile phones to scan and go.

The NACS Convenience Summit Europe is a three-day international event that features thought leadership from European and global speakers, expert-guided retail tours and opportunities to build strategic relationships with leading retailers around the globe. Mark your calendars for the 2020 NACS Convenience Summit Europe in Berlin, Germany.

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