The July edition of ShelfLife Magazine focused on Self-Checkout in their ‘Retail Tech Category Focus’.

CBE has been at the forefront of self-checkout innovation and was, in fact, the first company to offer self-checkout to independent retailers in Ireland. Self-checkout is not a new innovation to retail, but as a major component of the new omni-channel experience, it is becoming a ‘must-have’ element for stores rather than an optional ‘add-on’ as was the case in the past.

Consider your store’s demographics
As with most technologies, a one-size-fits-all approach is not advised as each store must understand their own requirements when considering self-checkout as store size, demographics of users and payment options preferred by customers are just some of the areas that need to be considered. CBE can offer a number of versatile self-checkout solutions with the most popular options to date being the conventional multi-tender unit and the unique cashless terminal. CBE can install a combination of units and as part of their best practice guidelines would suggest that stores integrate self-checkout technology along with manual checkouts in order to satisfy the needs of all prospective customers.

CBE has multiple installations throughout the country and feedback from both retailers and customers has been very positive.

Increase in convenience customers
Self-checkout has proven to be extremely effective at reducing frustrating queuing times at busy periods without engaging additional staff. In most cases this has resulted in an increase in sales at peak times. Interestingly, with the introduction of self-checkout, the larger supermarkets have also seen an increase in convenience shoppers – especially at the weekends.

Self-checkout enables retailers to redeploy personnel at short notice to maximise labour efficiencies. It also ensures that retail stores keep pace with consumer demand and provides a unique customer service offering to differentiate their store from the discounters.

In a recent survey, 100% of retailers that have installed the CBE solution would recommend self-checkout to another store.

Building customer loyalty
Whilst there is compelling business rationale for introducing self-checkout, it is the enhancements to the customer’s shopping experience that has been the biggest success to date of the CBE installations. By reacting to market demands and giving customers a choice it has allowed retailers to build greater customer loyalty.

In some cases there is over 30% of sales going through the self-service lanes and when quizzed as their reasons for using self-checkout, most customers cite: reduced queues, faster service, offers choice, more convenient and a better customer service as the main reasons.

Working in tandem with ‘contactless’
The average transaction at the self-checkouts is €11 which is ideally suited to the new contactless technology that has been rolled out throughout the country. This will further speed up transaction times in busy retail stores where speed and convenience are of paramount importance.

CBE’s self-checkout technology has been designed to work in tandem with the ‘mobile scan and go’ solution whereby a customer uses their phone or a handheld terminal to scan their products as they shop. The transaction is then automatically transferred to the self-checkout terminal to finalise the payment thereby eliminating the need to commission extra staff to handle mobile scan and go transactions. CBE’s research has concluded that stores who wish to implement mobile scan and go will have a greater success rate if self-checkout is also installed.

CBE’s research to date has categorically proven that implementing self-checkout enhances the customers shopping experience, drives loyalty and secures repeat business.

If you wish to find out more about CBE’s self-checkout technologies, contact Dominic Feeney on 1890 373000 or email sales@cbe.ie for more information.