Debate heats up as community group calls to boycott self-checkouts

While a community group recently criticised self-service checkouts, saying automation lacks the "feel good factor", retailers maintain that rise in the trend is a response to changing consumer behaviour and the need of the hour.

Taking aim at self-checkouts in stores, Bridgwater Senior Citizens' Forum recently stated that such automation is replacing workers and damaging customer service.

"More and more supermarkets are replacing staff with machines, and we must help to reverse the trend," BBC quoted Forum chairman Ken Jones as saying.

"The knowledge and advice of retail staff is invaluable, but we also value human interaction above machines and artificial intelligence.

"Just saying hello to someone makes you come back, especially in dark days of winter. The feelgood factor, you can't put a price on it can you?"

Self-checkouts are present in 96 per cent of grocery stores worldwide.

In the UK's convenience channel, about 17 per cent of convenience stores now have a self-service till, states "Local Shop Report" by the Association of Convenience Stores, signifying a significant portion of the country's convenience stores offer self-checkout options.

Convenience stores often see self-checkout tills as an asset as they save time and queues at the counter in case of staff shortage.

Budgens Berrymoor has a self- checkout till. Retailer Biren Patel considers having the system as an asset and also as a backup in case of lesser staff.

Patel told Asian Trader in a recent conversation, "In future, in case, if I have to reduce the staff, I can have just one staff at the till and the other one customers can use themselves and save time by standing in the queue."

Retailers also argue self-service tills reflect changing consumer habits and offer speed and convenience.

Kris Hamer, director of insight at the British Retail Consortium, said, "The expansion of self-service checkouts is a response to changing consumer behaviours, which show many people prioritising speed and convenience.

"Many retailers provide manned and unmanned checkouts as they work to deliver great service at low cost for their customers".

Apart from convenience, upcoming rise in wages is also expected to further push the use to self-checkout tills in the stores.

However, there is a con for retailers here as multiple studies show that shoppers tend to cheat at self-checkout tills while some use such tills to steal from stores.

According to the poll of 1,099 adults by Ipsos, one in eight adults (13 per cent) said they had selected a cheaper item on a self-service till than the one they were buying. If applied to the entire UK adult population, it would mean six million people have taken advantage of self-checkouts to steal from shops.

Earlier this month, another new research revealed that almost 40 per cent of UK shoppers have failed to scan at least one item when using self-checkouts.