Consumers are typically impatient and avoid standing in line whenever possible. Enter self-checkout, or self-service, lanes at grocery stores and other retailers, which became especially popular during Covid-19.
While shoppers and store staff were initially wary, this reluctance has all but disappeared. Consumers like the faster checkout and stores are happy to oblige. Even more forms of self-checkout are now available with scan-and-go mobile apps as well as the fully autonomous grab-and-go version.
Now a Canadian study confirms the self-checkout has found wider shopper adoption. Merchants will also find shorter checkout lines and less cash handling are here to stay.
The following excerpt from a Lake Superior News article reports more on the topic:
Only a few years ago, self-checkouts were seen as job killers by many Canadians.
Grocers just didn’t know what to think of self-checkouts. And consumers had a love-hate relationship with them. Some saw them as job killers, replacing humans who desperately needed employment. Others quietly used them, either preferring a speedy exit or simply avoiding unnecessary human interaction, making self-checkouts valuable for anti-socialites.
But with the pandemic, self-checkouts are becoming more popular, and grocers have noticed.
Since the start of the pandemic, 25 percent of Canadians have changed where they typically shop for groceries, according to a recent survey by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, in partnership with Caddle. The survey was conducted in mid-to-late May 2021 and included 10,024 Canadians.
Twenty-five percent is an astonishing number. Of this group, a good portion of respondents admitted that a switch was necessary due to declared COVID-19 cases related to the store they regularly visited. Consumers are clearly concerned about potential exposure to the virus – or anything else, for that matter.
In the same survey, Canadians were asked how they intend to exit the grocery store in months to come. A whopping 53.2 percent of respondents intend to use self-checkouts regularly over the next six months or so. And 60.1 percent of generation Z members (born between 1997 and 2005) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) are planning to use self-checkouts more often. Self-checkouts are almost as popular as cashiers now.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Director, Merchant Services at Mercator Advisory Group
