Love them or loathe them, the use of self checkouts in supermarkets is part of the shopping experience in many major retailers but controversy surrounds whether or not they are resulting in the loss of jobs.

Do customers like them?

Self checkouts are supposed to be faster and the choice if you are shopping for only a few products but queues do still build up at them during busy periods. And then there is the ‘unexpected item’ or something that fails to scan. If the supermarket attendant is busy there may be a delay in getting the assistant’s help.

There are even a few places like Amazon Fresh with check out free technology which scans the items you are putting in your bag as cameras track you around the shop. The customer is then billed on their Amazon account. The ‘just walk out’ technology removes the need to interact at all with retail staff.

Writing for ‘Which’, Ian Aikman states:

“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. “

In recent research produced by Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business (Feeling rewarded and entitled to be served: Understanding the influence of self- versus regular checkout on customer loyalty published in Science Direct)  it was noted that customers are more likely to remain loyal to the grocery store when using the regular checkout service. They found loyalty is demonstrated by an increased likelihood of returning to the store in the future. 

There was a mixed customer response to the self- checkout. Extra effort required to checkout and bag purchases and the expectation of being served by the store were negative consequences of self-checkout and decreased loyalty to the store. But, when shoppers viewed the extra effort in self-checkout as a rewarding experience, their store loyalty matched that of regular checkout shoppers.

Lead researcher Yanliu Huang, PhD, explained;

“Our findings indicate that self-checkout systems, despite their advantages in terms of speed, ease of use, and cost reduction, can result in lower customer loyalty compared to regular checkout systems, especially when the number of purchased items is relatively high (e.g., more than 15 items).

“For example, to overcome the negative impacts of using self-checkout on customer loyalty, retailers should attempt to make the self-checkout experience more rewarding, like encouraging shoppers to think the extra effort involved in self-checkout is a rewarding experience. Doing so offers retailers a solution to improve their self-checkout customers’ overall shopping experience, which in turn will facilitate higher customer loyalty.”

The Independent newspaper ran a survey of its readers to gather their views about self service checkouts which produced a mixed response with the reactions we have all become used to ranging between those who love them and those who loathe them.

In all things retail it will be the customer who decides and it seems that most shoppers still prefer the interaction they have with a cashier manned till rather than the self service option – certainly for the big weekly shop. Cost will factor in as the decider for the retailer – the maintenance of self service checkouts, including having an assistant there to help with the glitches, and shopper loyalty being compromised with negative experiences of long queues at them making the idea that they are faster a nonsense.

We’ve all become that little bit more impatient about queuing and wanting speed in shopping. For retailers making the experience of shopping in their store less stressful, products easier to find with less searching along aisles, and offering affordable fresh foodstuffs would ensure shopper loyalty. For any shopping experience having helpful, supportive and knowledgeable staff is why shoppers return time and time again to any one store.

Fiona Grahame