Unexpected Absence in Shopping Area

26 May 2022

Tyler Curtis

Glory

Unexpected Absence in Shopping Area

Self-checkout is everywhere. Love it or hate it, in much of the world it’s becoming hard to find a supermarket without a self-checkout lane (and convenience stores are hot on their trail).

But what does that mean for the customer experience? Are we feeling the absence of our friendly neighbourhood cashiers?

Not everyone is a fan of the self-checkout lane, certainly. Most of us have encountered the dreaded “unexpected item in bagging area” at some point or another. But research continues to demonstrate that the majority of shoppers are now in favour of having self-service options – a trend that has only accelerated with the pandemic.

80% of in-store shoppers would like non-traditional checkout
options such as self-service

Source: PYMNTS.com – “Today’s Self-Service Shopping Journey”

That’s a powerful statistic. But options is the key word here. It’s about choice. These respondents are not saying they want to use self-checkout every time they shop. The key is providing choice in the customer experience. Allowing them to select the option that best suits their needs at that moment. My instinct is, if you asked those same shoppers if they are in favour of having staffed service options, a majority would probably say yes to that too.

The long and short of it

For retailers, the benefits of self-checkout are obvious: lowering labour costs, redeploying employees to higher value tasks, faster moving queues (which benefits the customer experience), as well as new opportunities to upsell customers, alert them to exclusive offers, and communicate brand messaging.

But what about customers?

Long queues are the primary driver, according to Capgemini, with 60% of shoppers identifying it as a pain point in the shopping experience, and 85% believing that self-checkout is typically faster than cashier-guided checkout. Many people today even identify not having to interact with anyone as a positive factor, which demonstrates the evolution of customer expectations over recent decades.

Of course, the danger is that some retailers will implement self-checkout purely as a cost cutting exercise, without re-investing any of that capital back into the customer experience. In fact, 63% of consumers feel this is exactly what happens.

This is a missed opportunity. Self-checkout is a chance to make staff more available to customers and make sure their needs are being met. Thankfully, plenty of businesses have instituted self-checkout in a more balanced way, making savings without sacrificing their customers’ experience along the way. But the impetus is on retailers to change this opinion on self-checkout, and they can only do it by maintaining a great customer experience.

In the current retail market though, there is a greater challenge lurking.

Since the pandemic, labour is in short supply. For example, last week in the UK it was announced that there are, for the first time in history, more vacancies in the jobs market than there are unemployed workers to fill them. It’s a similar story across much of the world. And the hard reality is, there’s no way to run a store without the staff you need and maintain the customer experience.

Or is it?

For those who haven’t implemented it yet, self-checkout can provide a solution for overcoming labour shortages whilst still delivering a good customer experience. If you can’t get the staff you need, there are only two options: degrade your service offering, or automate parts of the process.

Of course, as with all things in life, it’s not just what you do, but how you do it.

A high quality solution that provides a reliable experience for your customers is a must. As is deploying the labour you do have wisely, so that customers are not left facing an unexpected absence in the shopping area.

Self-service is a success only when customer experience remains the top priority of the retailer. That’s how you create true choice – one in which the customer knows they will have the support they need, whichever lane they choose.

We can help you make self-checkout a success in your business. See our solutions here, or get in touch with our team to have a chat about what would work in your stores.

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