Time to re-think self-checkouts, Volumatic says

In an era marked by a huge rise in retail technological advancements aimed at enhancing convenience, the self-checkout experience can fall short of its promise, leaving shoppers grappling with frustrations and inefficiencies, cash handling solutions provider Volumatic has said.

Whilst self-checkouts were introduced with the intention of speeding up the shopping experience and reducing wait times, they have frequently been marred by a myriad of inconveniences, including:

• Self-checkout machines not scanning properly
• Items not being recognised
• Items needing approval – from alcohol to glue, to over-the-counter medicines and even non-alcoholic drinks – needing staff intervention
• The machines make customers do the work of store staff

Amidst these challenges, retailers too are urged to prioritise the optimisation of self-checkouts to better support all demographics.

“The simple truth is that both customers and businesses like technology as long as it works well. Here at Volumatic we love to embrace new technology, but self-checkouts have become unreliable and are frustrating even the most loyal customers,” Mike Severs, sales and marketing director at Volumatic, said.

“As cash handling experts, we regularly encourage retailers to offer their customers the choice to use cash as well as other payment methods, and the element of choice for customers extends to this too – while some shoppers are happy to use self-checkouts, others prefer to be served by a person.

“By offering their customers a choice they can help keep customers happy and reduce losses and by investing in intelligent cash handling solutions like the CCi instead, they can reduce costs, become more efficient and increase their POS security all in one.”

Already long-established at the point-of-sale (POS) in Tesco, Morrisons, Co-op and Nisa stores, Volumatic’s all-in-one cash handling solution, the CounterCache intelligent (CCi) not only validates banknotes, immediately identifying counterfeits but also counts and stores notes securely at POS, reducing the risk of till snatches and shrinkage.

Volumatic’s new CashView Enterprise cash management software offers retail business owners intelligent dashboards and live notifications, giving them the ability to track cash flow effectively, and allows full visibility of the cash within the CCi devices across the store(s).

“As the retail landscape continues to evolve, it is necessary for business owners to collaborate in identifying and implementing solutions that can uphold efficiency, accessibility, and customer satisfaction at the till-point. This means that while retailers can continue to use the technology they have invested so heavily in, they should also increasingly be offering customers the option to choose between human and machine payments,” Severs concluded.