retail environment
Booths bucks self-checkout trend
A supermarket chain has become Britain's first to return to fully-staffed checkouts after axing most of its self-service tills.
Booths, which has 27 stores in the North across Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire and Cheshire, has been finding the machines to be 'slow, unreliable and impersonal' and decided that 'rather than artificial intelligence we're going for actual intelligence'.
Staff at the upmarket firm, dubbed the 'northern Waitrose’ added that they wanted to ensure customers were served by people with 'high levels of warm, personal care'.
The move by Booths, founded in 1847, has provoked much debate on the benefits of self-checkouts as retailers continue to battle a shoplifting epidemic.
The British Independent Retailers Association said there could be a 'reality check with the current level of retail theft and self-service tills becoming an expensive risk'.
All but two Booths stores will put staff back on the tills - with the exceptions being in the Lake District at Keswick and Windermere which can become very busy at times.
Booths managing director Nigel Murray said: "Our customers have told us this over time, that the self-scan machines that we've got in our stores they can be slow, they can be unreliable, they're obviously impersonal.
"We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you've got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don't know one different apple versus another for example."
He said there was 'all sorts of fussing about with that' and then as soon as someone puts alcohol in their basket, an employee has to come over to perform an age check.
Mr Murray continued: "We are a business that prides ourselves on the high standards and high levels of warm, personal care.
'We like to talk to people and we're really proud that we're moving largely to a place where our customers are served by people, by human beings, so rather than artificial intelligence, we're going for actual intelligence."
The British Independent Retailers Association described the move as a 'very interesting development' and said that independent retailers would never use self-service tills, preferring instead to deliver personal service at the till.
Furthermore, indie retailers view the checkout as an extra opportunity to sell and it seems that Booths are now following their example.
They said there may also be a reality check with the current level of retail theft and self-service tills becoming an expensive risk.
The British Retail Consortium's 2023 Crime Survey put the scale of annual retail theft in Britain at £953 million, despite more than £700 million in crime prevention spending by retailers.
This meant the total cost of retail crime stood at £1.76billion for the year to April.
It also found that incidents of violence and abuse towards retail colleagues had almost doubled on pre-pandemic levels to 867 incidents every day in 2021/22.
A separate survey of the organisation's members in 2023 found that levels of shoplifting in ten major UK cities had risen by an average of 27 per cent.
Industry sources said they had not heard any other supermarkets or retailers suggest they were getting rid of self-checkouts.
Robert Downes, development manager for the Federation of Small Businesses in Manchester, tweeted: "Well done Booths supermarkets for axing the hated self-checkout. A welcome return to staff checkouts and proper customer service - not to mention a deterrent to casual shoplifting. Now let's see if others follow suit?"
He added: "Levels of shoplifting may spell the end for self-checkouts. Whatever they save on staff costs is surely eroded by thieving - which honest folk pay for through higher prices."
And Harry Rose, editor of Which? magazine, said: "Cutting back on self-service tills is an interesting move from Booths - and we know this is an issue many people feel strongly about. Many shoppers dislike the impersonal nature of self-service tills and that they sometimes don't work properly, meaning staff having to get involved anyway. Some are uncomfortable with being filmed by a camera as they pack their shopping or having to scan a receipt before they can leave the store.
"Other people prefer using the self-service tills as it can cut their queuing time or help them to get in and out of the store quickly if they just want to pick up a few items. This debate is only likely to continue as technology advances and supermarkets make decisions about how to deploy it in their stores."
