More and more, once their shopping trolleys are full, customers are being offered the choice between traditional checkouts and self-service terminals. In the world of furniture, textiles, and food for example, self-checkouts are accelerating their deployment. Thanks to its economic performance (less investment in equipment and staff, but also real benefits in terms of space), it erases this original point of tension in store represented by payment.
Ikea, Decathlon, Auchan, Casino... These recent examples show how the deployment of self-checkout, which involves a customer carrying out the payment operations themselves1, is currently accelerating. The change is a noticeable one in several sectors (home appliances, textiles, food), both in France and abroad. According to the London consulting firm RBR, 46,000 stores worldwide offer customers the opportunity to carry out the necessary operations themselves to validate their basket and pay for their items (self-checkout). But the prevalence of self-checkout solutions is expected to triple to 160,000 points of sale in 2027 worldwide, according to this study (« Mobile Self-Scanning and Checkout-Free ». August 2022)
Consumers seem to be more and more willing to become the agents of their own « checkout » process, without going through the traditional queue process ! First introduced in France in 2004, (source LSA), self-checkouts nowadays make use of several technical supports : optical reading scanners, smartphones capable of reading barcodes, boxes allowing the decryption of RFID chips, real miniature identity cards for the products, and cameras that can automatically recognise 3D products. The widespread use of smartphones, whose optical reading qualities have increased tenfold in recent years, allows retailers to save on investment in handheld scanners.
« Self-checkouts are undoubtedly becoming more popular, » says Vincent Verschelde, director of the deployment of new payment routes in retail at Norgatec Consulting. This is happening for several reasons that relate to the evolution of the customer culture, as well as to the operational efficiency of its solutions, a crucial point in times of inflation. « A staffed self-service terminal, with store assistants who come to the rescue of customers and who are no longer required to remain seated to cash out, or to close their till, for example, once their shift has ended, is generally half as expensive in terms of equipment and operation as a traditional checkout, » says this expert. It records fewer breakdowns, requires more versatile staff and allows you to gain new sales spaces.
« With the rapid rise of e-commerce, brands must keep up with the web, its speed and flexibility of execution, » warns Vincent Verschelde. It is therefore necessary to streamline this end of the customer journey, which until now has floundered when it comes to the in-store checkout queue. The increase in prices even provides a perfect argument for the accelerated development of self-checkouts. As it is possible for customers to build up their basket as they go along, inside the point of sale, they can better monitor their expenditure. Passing through the shelves, it is simple to remove an item from one's list, either on the application or on the handheld scanner provided by the store. An anti-inflation reflex, basically.
In 2021, Brico Depot (123 stores) had set the example in DIY by partnering with the fintech Lyf. The Kingfisher group's brand offers its customers the opportunity to scan their products as they buy and to pay for them directly on the Lyf application via the « Scan & Go » immediate payment solution. They can thus access the detailed information sheet of the item, and check its price. The use of 3D Secure is not necessary, thanks to the wallet payment approval, awarded to Lyf by GIE Cartes bancaires. For its part, Ikea, with its 34 stores in France, discreetly deploys its own solution, which is integrated into the Ikea application. This allows customers to avoid the tricky handling of heavy items. Once the Ikea application has been downloaded, customers must specify which store they are in (the store's item database then becomes accessible, even offline) and click on « scan my items in store ». At the end of the journey, a QR code, which summarises the contents of their basket, allows them to access a specific checkout. No need for them to take any purchases out of their bag or shopping trolley ! This service has been tested in France since 2020, but also in Belgium and the Netherlands.
For its part, Auchan also chooses discretion. For the past year, the group (made up of 136 hypermarkets, 639 supermarkets and 156 local supermarkets) has been deploying, alongside traditional checkouts, « Rapid Auchan » self-scanning areas. These have the particular feature of accepting all means of payment, including cash1, thanks to change machines. This is useful for small budgets and/or small spends. The terminal device can be supplemented by the use of either the smartphone or handheld scanners, in order to further accelerate the scanning of items directly in the sales area. These are only accessible to holders of the Auchan loyalty card or an Oney account (group bank). The payment is made at the end of the journey, after a single queue, on several compact terminals. « The dematerialisation of payment methods and the digitisation of add-ons, such as lunch vouchers or discount coupons, facilitate the automation of checkout processes, » comments Vincent Verschelde. It is estimated, at Auchan, that one in two customers prefers, according to the stores, the use of assisted self-service terminals rather than conventional checkouts, and this trend is continuing to grow.
Diversifying payment methods, but also improving customer perception while waiting : these are the keys to success in implementing this solution. However, the wait seems much shorter and less restrictive when the customer is placed in a single queue. Instead of looking at the checkout next door, which always seems to move faster, the customer spends their time chatting, looking at their phone or buying, on impulse, the multiple items that are within arm's reach, on « temptation » displays. This is one of the lessons learned from the success of the Decathlon sports brand (324 stores in France), a pioneer in the use of RFID chips to facilitate and streamline payment collection. « The main success criterion (KPI) is the perception of waiting time, » explains the Norgatec consultant.
The proliferation of these new payment collection areas, where customers must come and pay for their shop under the supervision of the sales assistants, offers retailers the opportunity to strengthen their customer relationship. In stores, the moment of payment has always been a moment of « original » tension. « Thanks to self-scanning, brands can establish a new relationship with their customers, » says Vincent Verschelde. They can send them the following message : « I am no longer just here to charge you, but to support you at the end of your purchase process ». We have left the original fears about the social consequences of self-scanning far behind us. Today, store managers emphasise optimising team management and valuing the work of checkout assistants. Certainly, other self-scanning techniques are emerging. In the United States, for example, the start-up Mashgin uses artificial intelligence to train cameras to identify items selected by the customer. It is a system that requires the customer to pass through a detection tunnel and is inspired by Amazon Go. Still, with or without a barcode, terminal or phone, in-store payment automation is up and running.
1 Selection of items in store thanks to handheld scanners or smartphones, or when leaving the store thanks to terminals then payment.
2 The cheque is processed separately on the checkout line