Tesco has opened one of its Express convenience stores in England but with one significant difference. The store in Kingsley, Northampton is the first of its kind to run a test with five checkouts and no cashiers. All checkouts in the store are self-serve with one attendant on hand to assist shoppers who may have some trouble checking-out themselves.
As a Daily Mail piece points out, there is concern among some that, should entirely self-checkout stores work, thousands of retail workers could find themselves out of jobs.
Tesco says it has not received any negative feedback about the new store. A company spokesperson told the Mail, "'Customers like the fact there are always five checkouts available. Before you could have four manned checkouts but only one person working the till. It's a lot quicker but some people have never used them before so a member of staff is there to assist. If needs be there can be five members of staff assisting customers."
A spokesperson for Wal-Mart's Asda division, told the Mail, "Hell would probably freeze over before we had a store with no customer interaction at all on the checkouts. Many of our customers shop with us because they recognize Bill on checkout 10 and will go to the same person every week. You get to have a bit of a chat and some human interaction and that's very important for a lot of people."
Richard Dodd of the British Retail Consortium said, "In the far distant future who knows what technology will make possible? We could well see the end of staffed checkouts forever. Customers are interested in how quickly they can pay for their goods and get out and retailers are constantly focused on improving that."
Tesco has stressed that the store is a test and it does not have any immediate plans to roll out the concept to its other stores in the U.K.
Discussion Questions: Have manned checkouts become a competitive liability in today's market? Will we eventually see an end to manned checkouts? What companies in the U.S. do you think would be the most likely candidates to go this route?