Harry took a look around the store, put some items in his bag, and… just walked out. ‘It genuinely feels quite creepy,’ he said of the checkout-free experience at the time.
Perhaps unexpectedly, he ended up becoming a frequent customer of Amazon Fresh when a branch opened near his home. Now, the technology feels so normal to him that he worries he might walk out of other shops without paying.
Checkout-free stores work by tracking customers with hundreds of cameras and sensors, and billing their Amazon accounts for what they picked up after they leave. When the first store launched, it felt like the future. Soon, it seemed, we’d wave goodbye to ‘unexpected item in bagging area’ announcements and borderline-degrading ‘visibly over 25’ button-pushes. We’d have moved from staffed checkouts to self-checkouts to zero checkouts in the space of a couple of decades.
But almost three years later, ‘just walk out’ shopping remains niche. And one supermarket chain, Booths – often dubbed the ‘Waitrose of the north’ – is turning back the clock, replacing nearly all of its self-checkout machines with traditional staffed tills.
Does this mean the zero-checkout future will never actually arrive, or is it merely taking more time than expected?
'Dehumanising the shopping experience'
Self-checkout tills have become a frustrating part of everyday life for many. Items don’t always scan properly, they rarely accept cash, and you’re often left stranded until a store assistant notices you have yet another unidentified item in the bagging area.
They also remove the social interaction that some people enjoy or even rely on when they're at the shops. Professor Andrew Smith, a consumer behaviour expert from Nottingham University Business School, told Which?: '[Self-checkouts are] dehumanising the experience. I'm not sure consumers are crying out for that.'
The 22% of shoppers who said there weren't enough staffed checkouts in our 2023 supermarkets survey will no doubt welcome Booths' return to staffed checkouts. Experts doubt other supermarkets are likely to follow its lead, however.
‘Booths is swimming against the “rise of the machines” tide here,’ says Scott Thompson, editor and founder of the Retail Tech Innovation Hub (RTIH).
‘I don’t see the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Asda following suit. If anything I expect the big grocery players to double down on their investments in self-checkouts, self-scanning technology, mobile apps etc.’
Most supermarket executives appear to share this view. Between 60% and 70% of 100 retail executives believe ‘reduced or no checkout (i.e. frictionless, “just walk out”)’ will be a typical part of their customers’ lives within five to 10 years, according to a recent Deloitte survey.
But if this is the case, what’s been holding back the checkout-free revolution in supermarkets?
Find out more:A 'test and learn' approach
Almost three years ago, when Amazon Fresh brought checkout-free ‘just walk out’ shopping to the UK, the ecommerce giant reportedly had plans to open 260 stores across the country by 2024.
But it appears to have changed tack, currently listing just 20 UK Fresh stores on its website, most in London. Some branches have permanently closed, including the Ealing branch Harry visited back in 2021.
We asked Scott Thompson of RTIH whether checkout-free shopping was just a fad, or if something else was going on: ‘I wouldn’t call it a flash in the pan, but rather a classic case of Amazon testing and learning,’ he says. ‘This is a long game thing we’re talking about here.’
As part of its testing and learning, says Thompson, Amazon has made mistakes. ‘It was a mistake to target highly competitive areas in London,’ he tells us.
‘For example, Ealing Broadway, which became Amazon's first opening in March 2021, was a short walk away from four major players – a Morrisons, a Sainsbury's Local, a Tesco Express and a Marks & Spencer.’
Tesco, too, launched an entirely checkout-free store in 2021, but has since rowed back and made it a hybrid store where customers can also use staffed checkouts.
As for why other supermarkets haven’t adopted checkout-free technology yet, it’s likely a matter of cost. ‘Ultimately, as things stand, the price point for supermarket checkout-free stores is too high and therefore limiting adoption.’
Find out more:Searching for a middle ground
Completely frictionless shopping might be too expensive at the moment, and a return to traditional checkouts is unlikely to take off - especially now that, as Professor Smith points out, self-checkouts have trained us to be more impatient when it comes to queueing. So what kind of changes will we see to supermarket checkouts over the next couple of years?
Realistically, we're unlikely to lose all staffed checkouts any time soon - but the tech that powers self-checkouts will steadily improve, and frictionless shopping will continue to grow.
Despite its headline-grabbing announcement, even Booths is keeping self-service checkouts at its two busiest stores.
Meanwhile, Tesco is experimenting with a new kind of self-checkout machine that doesn’t require customers to scan items. Similar to the machines found in Uniqlo clothing stores at the moment, these machines identify items in customers’ baskets by scanning them for you.
Currently, this technology is only available at Tesco’s GetGo store in Fulham as part of a range of checkout options, including an app-powered ‘just walk out’ system, regular self-service tills, and staff-attended tills.
And, just as supermarkets stock an almost limitless choice of food and drink items, perhaps the future will be a range of checkout options to serve different customers’ tastes and needs.
Find out more:source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/future-of-supermarket-checkouts-aAjrv9l0iwUu