How self-checkout trolleys help supermarkets get you to spend more

Thursday, 5 December 2019

While high-tech supermarkey trolley makers claim their self-checkout trolleys would help shoppers budget and avoid queues, a marketing expert says the greatest benefit of the technology was to the supermarket itself.

Foodstuffs and Farro will trial trolleys with built-in scanning systems next year.

Auckland senior marketing lecturer Mike Lee said the technology behind self-checkout trolleys was here to stay, but while companies claimed the trolleys were for the customers' convenience, they were good for business.

'The main benefit to the company is obviously increased turnover. The quicker you can get more people in and out of your doors, the more people you can fit in your shop,' Lee said.

'If queues are too long you'll have to hire more staff to cope with demand or shoppers will just avoid your shop at certain times of the day and the worst thing for a business is for customers to go to its competitors.'

**READ MORE:

Foodstuffs North Island will trial the trolleys with a built-in barcode scanner and tablet at its new Pukekohe store, when it opens this week.

* New World, Farro to introduce high-tech shopping trolleys

* How not to enhance the supermarket shopping experience

Marketing lecturer at University of Auckland Mike Lee says self-checkout trolleys could get people to spend longer, and more, in shops.

* Are Smartcarts the future of shopping?**

The man behind Imagr, which has designed a self-checkout trolleys that lets customers avoid queues by paying for items as they are placed in the shopping cart, came up with the idea for his business after losing half his lunch break standing in line at the checkout.

Auckland specialty grocer Farro planned to trial its trolleys at its Grey Lynn store next year. Foodstuff's Zoom trolleys included a built-in barcode scanner and tablet will be trialled at New World Pukekohe next year.

Imagr chief executive William Chomley says one of the biggest pain points for supermarkets was queues.

Imagr chief executive William Chomley said one of the biggest pain points for supermarkets was queues.

'Customers cut their shopping short to account for standing in line. Supermarkets lose impulse purchases because of checkouts,' Chomley said.

'By re-distributing your resources and keeping them in the store for longer. You can sell them more.'

Lee said 10 years from now supermarkets could mostly be unmanned, with just one or two staff and a security guard.

He said if self-checkout trolleys and other technology to replace people were more widely implemented, discount retailers, like German giants Lidl and Aldi who sold mostly non-perishables items, could further reduce their pricing.

But Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin said unmanned supermarkets were not in its plans in the forseeable future as many of its customers enjoyed the social interaction.

Quin said it was too early to say whether technology replacing customer service jobs could reduce the cost of groceries.

'We still see the need for checkout operators. New tech also brings new types of jobs such as support for the hardware and software behind Zoom – in store we'll require people to provide operational support as well,' he said.

Lee said social interaction came at a cost to businesses, and younger generations especially preferred not to have much of it.

'People cost money, and to be honest the social interaction in a supermarket is probably not that enriching. Young people especially avoid eye contact anyway,' Lee said.

In addition to selling more to customers, the more technology is embedded in the shopping experience, the more data businesses could extract from their customers, he said.