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Walmart associates check out customers on the floor in pilot program

Written by Tom Ryan

Source: Walmart

Walmart is testing a program, “Check Out With Me,” that enables associates to check out customers in the lawn & garden sections at more than 350 U.S. stores. Outfitted with cellular devices and Bluetooth printers, associates can ring up customers and provide a receipt on the spot. Walmart associates scan customers' items with the Check Out With Me mobile device, swipe their credit cards and provide them with receipts — printed and electronic options are available. Walmart writes on its blog, “Customers no longer need to venture inside the physical store to pay for items like mulch, soil and flowers, saving them valuable time.” Apple, Nordstrom and Victoria‘s Secret are among the few retailers that enable associates to check out shoppers on the floor with tablets or modified iPod Touch devices. Associates can take advantage of the mobile-pay engagements for deeper customer service involvement, such as offering product advice and upselling. The bigger trend lately, however, has been around consumer-enabled mobile checkout. Walmart, Macy's, Kroger and Meijer have all rolled out programs that let shoppers scan items and then pay. In some cases, shoppers head to a self-checkout with their list of scanned items, but in others they pay through the app and only have to verify their purchase. Amazon Go has earned the most attention for its scan and “just walk out” technology. A survey of just over 1,000 U.S. consumers sponsored by Adyen, the payments platform, identified a group of early-tech adopters, Spendsetters, that are more open to a wide variety of payment options. With 52 percent of the group representing Millennials, the findings on Spendsetters included:
  • Eighty percent are comfortable using digital wallets;
  • Seventy-five percent would shop more in-store with a "just walk out" payment experience;
  • Fifty-nine percent want to use a store-branded app to pay onsite;
  • Seventy-four percent are considering cashless stores that only accept cards and digital payment;
  • Eighty-six percent have left a store due to long lines.
 

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