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Challenges and benefits of self-scanning


It’s safe to say that one of the biggest challenges that retailers face is long lines and impatient customers. Time is extremely valuable, and consumers don’t want to wait in long lines. They want a quick and efficient experience without hassle. One way to accommodate this is by implementing self-scanning.

April 16, 2019
By Søren Brammer Riis
Retail

The solution breaks down the long lines and lets consumers shop as they want in an efficient and convenient way. Of course, there’s two sides of the same coin so we’ll take you through both the challenges and the benefits of self-scanning. 


Challenges

There are some challenges associated with the solution that might make you hesitate to take the next step. Don’t worry, it should be manageable.

  • Customers must adapt to a new way of shopping and staff must adapt to a new way of working. This will naturally take some time, but you can shorten that time by choosing a solution that is user-friendly and thought out. Also make sure to have enough staff to help customers and each other during the first time.
  • With self-scanning comes more monitoring and occasional security checks of customers to prevent fraud. Not everyone will be pleased with that, but if you train your staff to be helpful and explain to the customers that that’s what they are there for – to help – customers will be more understanding and less skeptical.
  • You need to change your stores, so they can support the solution. It requires things such as installation of scanner racks and dedicated pay stations.

Benefits

  • Self-scanning will shorten – or in best case – remove the long lines, so your customers save time.
  • The shopping experience gets more convenient. With self-scanning customers can scan and pack their items as they walk around your store and don’t have to interact with a cashier.
  • Basket size will increase. Consumers who use self-scanning are more likely to spend more money, especially if they’re presented with discounts and offers while they shop.

“In Europe, demand for these solutions continues to grow as retailers look to reduce labor related expenses and observe greater market basket sizes, witnessing on average, a 10% increase in overall revenues when deploying handheld self-scanning solutions” according to VDC Research.

We believe the benefits of self-scanning exceed the challenges, and this is truly a solution that can help you meet the needs and demands of today’s consumers. If you’re still not convinced you can also read our blog post “Self-service technologies are getting more and more popular among consumers”.