In an era marked by a huge rise in retail technological advancements aimed at enhancing convenience, the self-checkout experience can fall short of its promise, leaving shoppers grappling with frustrations and inefficiencies.
Recent observations and consumer feedback have shed light on the challenges associated with self-checkouts, underscoring the need for retailers to improve the instore experience.
Whilst self-checkouts were introduced with the intention of speeding up the shopping experience and reducing wait times, they have frequently been marred by a myriad of inconveniences, including:
1. Self-checkout machines not scanning properly
2. Items not being recognised
3. Items needing approval – from alcohol to glue, to over-the-counter medicines and even non-alcoholic drinks – needing staff intervention
4.The machines make customers do the work of store staff
Amidst these challenges, retailers too are urged to prioritise the optimisation of self-checkouts to better support all demographics. So, with self-checkouts causing issues on both sides, is it time for retailers to re-think and reinstate manned till areas?
Mike Severs, Sales & Marketing Director at Volumatic, says: “The simple truth is that both customers and businesses like technology as long as it works well. Here at Volumatic we love to embrace new technology, but self-checkouts have become unreliable and are frustrating even the most loyal customers.
“As cash handling experts, we regularly encourage retailers to offer their customers the choice to use cash as well as other payment methods, and the element of choice for customers extends to this too – while some shoppers are happy to use self-checkouts, others prefer to be served by a person.
“By offering their customers a choice they can help keep customers happy and reduce losses and by investing in intelligent cash handling solutions like the CCi instead, they can reduce costs, become more efficient and increase their POS security all in one.”
Already long-established at the point-of-sale (POS) in Tesco, Morrisons, the Co-op Food Group and Nisa stores, Volumatic’s all-in-one cash handling solution, the CounterCache intelligent (CCi) not only validates banknotes, immediately identifying counterfeits but also counts and stores notes securely at POS, reducing the risk of till snatches and shrinkage. The CCi streamlines the cash handling process to ensure accurate and simple cash processing. Cash is accepted by the cashier and not touched again until it is safely in the bank’s hands.
When enhanced with Volumatic’s new CashView Enterprise cash management software, the CCi becomes a true-end-to-end solution from POS to the bank, making cash handling more simple, more seamless and more efficient.
The new CashView Enterprise offers retail business owners intelligent dashboards and live notifications, giving them the ability to track cash flow effectively, and allows full visibility of the cash within the CCi devices across the store(s).
Severs concludes: “As the retail landscape continues to evolve, it is necessary for business owners to collaborate in identifying and implementing solutions that can uphold efficiency, accessibility, and customer satisfaction at the till-point. This means that while retailers can continue to use the technology they have invested so heavily in, they should also increasingly be offering customers the option to choose between human and machine payments.”
For more information or to read case studies from businesses around the UK, US and Europe currently implementing Volumatic’s intelligent cash handling solutions including money counting machines, CounterCache cash deposit units, forgery detectors, friction note counters and cash trolleys, visit www.volumatic.com
