Asda boosts manned checkout to win back market share

Asda has decided to put more staff on checkouts in a scramble to win back market share, after admitting the expansion of self-service technology had reached its limit.

The supermarket is spending £30 million on increasing staff hours. This includes increasing the hours in which staff will work on manned checkouts as part of a broader push to make its supermarkets more appealing.

Michael Gleeson, Asda’s chief financial officer, said, “I think we have reached a level of self checkouts and scan and go where we feel that works best for our customers, and we feel we’ve got the balance just about right.

“We have invested additional hours in manned checkouts and that’s been within the existing physical infrastructure [of the stores]. It’s not more checkouts, it’s more colleagues on checkouts.”

Asda will also invest in making stores cleaner and improving the availability of products across its estate. Some sites will take on extra staff to achieve this, while others will boost the hours given to existing workers.

This comes after Asda’s share of the grocery market dropped from 13.7 per cent at the start of 2024 to 12.7 per cent in July, according to Kantar.

On Thursday (8), Asda posted a 2 per centc increase in revenues during the first six months of 2024, but said like-for-like sales fell 2.1 per cent compared with a year earlier.

Gleeson pointed to recent efforts to bring down prices for shoppers, including the introduction of an Aldi and Lidl price match scheme earlier this year, while investing £70m in lowering prices.

Gleeson said, “We have achieved a huge amount in the first half of the year – it’s not been without its bumps along the way.

“I think it’s right to make sure that as we face into the second half of the year and the completion of that programme, that we invest in stores, invest in replenishment, to ensure we maintain and improve availability going into that important period in the lead into Christmas.”