Is there an end in sight to that frustrating robotic voice telling you about an unexpected item in the bagging area? UK supermarket giant Asda says it's looking to put more cashiers on supermarket checkout counters in a bid to win back customers, while high-end supermarket chain Booths in the north of England is planning to ditch self-service checkouts in all but two of its store to help deliver a better customer service.
Damian O'Reilly is a lecturer in retail management at TU Dublin and he joined RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime show to discuss this. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - the piece begins at the 1.53 mark).
"I think what's happening in the UK with Asda, for example, is its market share has dropped by 2% since 2021", explains O'Reilly. "A recent staff survey showed that workers are not happy with the strategy of the supermarket.
"One of the big bugbears for people when they go into a supermarket is queues so what supermarkets did after 2008 was basically brought in a lot of self-scan units to try and cut down on costs and queues and maintain their margins and cut down on wage costs at the time. Now, what's happening is that customer services has become extremely important and the likes of Asda are bringing in more customer cashiers to give a better level of service."
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime in 2020, when will we see totally checkout-free supermarkets?
O'Reilly thinks there's actually another reason behind the return of humans and at checkouts. "The cynic in me would say that it's more about trying to stop losing money than better customer service. I can only imagine how much stock is mis-scanned through the checkouts when people are not putting the right product in so there's a lot of theft and stealing and shoplifting going on. I think it's very difficult to monitor those self-checkouts, so they're going back to cashiers."
Can we expect similar changes in Irish supermarkets? "I wouldn't think that this would happen here to the same extent as it is in the UK", says O'Reilly. "I think there's a good selection here of self-checkouts versus cashiers. The likes of SuperValu and Tesco allow you to scan your shopping as you go around the shop so you get to the cashier, and then basically hand over the unit and just pay.
"Different technologies are going to come into play in the future. Things like RFID, radio frequency, which means that when you go through a reader, basically, that everything in the basket is read and it doesn't need line of sight like a barcode so you don't have to do each item individually. Technology's going to change that but the self scans are here to say."
However, it's not just all about technology. "There is a supermarket in France who have a kind of slow lane so basically you're guaranteed to have a chat with somebody. You could take your time, chat away, socialise with the cashier, and it's part of the job and it's there to increase customer service and give people that different option."
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
