Tesco has confirmed plans to make major changes to some of its largest stores. The supermarket giant has signalled it will begin to move away from manned checkouts and towards more self-service facilities.
Company bosses say the decision was made due to a lack of customer demand, Birmingham Live reports. Larger self-checkout areas were trialled in some shops, which were suitable for trolleys and three times longer than standard sizes.
This is now set to be rolled to other stores at a time when customers are calling for self service checkouts stop being added. One petition has even attracted more than 218,000 signatures.
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A Tesco spokeswoman told The Grocer : “We are proud to offer customers choice when it comes to checkouts, and after successful trials we are introducing new trolley-accessible self-service checkouts in some of our stores, which have more room and are easier to use for larger shops,”
“Our colleagues and the friendly service they provide are absolutely vital to our stores – they will always be on hand to help our customers, and will continue to operate attended checkouts so that customers can choose the option they prefer.”
Grocery Insight chief executive Steve Dresser told The Grocer the move was in-line with an increasing trend for moving to focus on self-service checkouts.
“[Supermarkets] are moving to dedicated checkouts rather than empty manned checkouts, which naturally are linked to the hours given to the front end,” he said.
“Of course, there are savings to be made losing the manned checkouts, but the reality is, you rarely see checkouts open these days en masse anyway, so it’s underutilised space. It’s not always positive for customers, however, as some may feel forced into self-service options.”
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