By Samuel Mueller, Scandit
When you visit many retailers these days, it’s hard to ignore the fact that there are more self-checkout stations and fewer traditional cashiers. There’s a good reason for this transformation. While you may assume that young and middle-aged consumers are the only ones who are really making use of self-checkout, the numbers reveal a different story. In a white paper, NCR shared data that confirmed that while 94% of 18-to-34-year-olds use self-checkout, 87% of 55-to-64-year-olds and 73% of shoppers 65 and older also use self-checkout.
Clearly, self-checkout is proving to be useful for consumers of all ages. However, mobile self-checkout — using your smartphone to scan and even pay for your items — offers even more advantages for consumers and retailers.
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Fast And Easy Checkout
Reduced Costs
With a self-checkout app, retailers can reduce the number of traditional checkout stations that are required. Operational costs are reduced.
More Retail Space
With fewer traditional and self-checkout stations taking up space, retailers will have more space for product displays in the most coveted retail real estate — the front of the store.
Product Information
Customers expect to be able to research items online. With mobile self-checkout, you can give them more detailed product information than you could ever give in the store. Self-checkout apps can also enable shoppers to search for a product, scan its barcode to learn more about it, read reviews and see inventory levels.
Familiar Technology
Even the most tech-savvy consumers can encounter problems in the self-checkout line. While the machines are useful, they’re not always intuitive and can be prone to strange errors that leave customers looking around the store for help. On the other hand, our smartphones are an extension of us. We use them for just about everything all day long and we’re experts at operating them. Therefore, we might as well scan and pay for purchases with them, too.
The benefits of mobile self-checkout are clear and indisputable. Just like with self-checkout stations, it will continue to take more time for consumers and retailers to get used to mobile self-checkout solutions. But very soon, mobile self-checkout solutions will make even self-checkout stations start to seem as outdated as traditional cash registers.
Samuel Mueller is the CEO and co-founder of Scandit and is responsible for overall strategic direction, marketing, sales and business development. Prior to Scandit, Mueller was a management consultant and project leader for multinational companies such as Swiss Airlines, Swiss Re and IBM, as well as a corporate researcher at the renowned IBM Zurich Research Lab. While at IBM, Mueller was awarded an IBM Research Division Award and a total of three IBM Invention Achievement Awards. He has authored numerous patent applications and has published his research results in leading conferences and journals. Mueller holds a PhD from ETH Zurich and graduated summa cum laude with an MSc in Computer Science and an MA in Financial Economics, both from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
