It’s hard to admit, but sometimes, technology isn’t the answer, as the self-service checkout fiasco shows
About a decade or so ago, self-service checkouts began appearing in our supermarkets, and were supposedly going to revolutionize the shopping experience while cutting retailers’ costs. The idea was that customers would no longer have to line up at the checkout, and instead would briskly scan the bar codes of their purchases, and then equally swiftly, pay for them by swiping their credit or debit card through a reader.
It seemed a simple, win-win solution: the cashier’s job in retail tends to be seen as a very low value-added activity, repetitive and alienating for the employee; barely a step away from automation. Eliminating these jobs meant, in addition to cost savings, freeing up store employees to carry out other activities. In addition, given the seeming simplicity of self-checkouts, it was expected that the whole process would be streamlined and efficient. The industry was excited: by 2013, there were already 191,000 self-service checkouts installed worldwide, and it was estimated that by 2025 they would reach 1.2 billion.
A decade on, the undeniable reality is failure. An unmitigated disaster. The checkout machines have proved harder to use than expected, with customers getting into all sorts of muddles, requiring store employees to be…
