WinCo experimenting with self checkout

WinCo Foods is testing out self checkout lanes for grocery store shoppers at its downtown Boise location. The move comes as industry data shows shoppers are using self-checkout less and after another Boise-based grocery chain pulled the computer-assisted lanes from its stores in other states.

“It’s an experiment at this point,” said WinCo spokesman Mike Read. “Whether we expand it remains to be seen.” Read said the company picked the store in between Myrtle and Front streets because it gets a lot of shoppers with fewer items to buy and more traffic during the middle of the day.

Read said that when WinCo pulled its express checkout lanes years ago, the company received a lot of feedback from customers at that store. “This may address that concern as well,” he said.

WinCo has nine stores and its headquarters in Idaho, and has locations in five other western states. Most of its local competitors in Boise already have self checkout lanes.

Self checkout lanes are designed to help shoppers speedily purchase the groceries in their shop or basket, bypassing lines of shoppers with full carts. However, self checkout can lead to slowdowns on items that are hard to scan on barcode readers or when needing to show photo ID for buying alcohol.

Nationwide data from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), which serves food retailers and wholesalers, shows that last year 15.8 percent of shoppers used a self checkout lane. That’s down from 22.4 percent in 2007, but above levels from 2005. FMI data also shows that shoppers report higher satisfaction when using cashier-assisted lanes rather than self checkout.

Albertsons, LLC, which is based in Boise but operates grocery stores in the southwest and southeast U.S., has done away with self checkout lanes in its more than 200 stores. Company spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said customer satisfaction scores have gone up since ditching self checkout.

“We feel like we can process customers more efficiently using a manned checkout lane than self-checkout,” Wilcox said.

Idaho’s Albertsons stores, run by SuperValu, are maintaining self checkout lanes. “It’s a convenience for them,” said spokeswoman Lilia Rodriguez.

John Stanton, a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania, said every grocery chain comes to a different conclusion about self checkout lanes, and that chains with a younger audience more familiar with technology are more likely to use them.

“It’s not a referendum on whether self checkouts are good or not,” Stanton said. He also said replacing the computerized lanes with cashiers isn’t a guarantee of improved service, since people often have poor or no interaction with cashiers. “Simply saying that ‘we have humans’ doesn’t mean that you have better customer service.”

Stanton said the next technological development, likely less than a decade away, is radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on every item in a grocery store that could eliminate checkout lines for regular shoppers.

“You’ll just put products in your cart and go home,” he said.