Tesco Opens UK’s First Self Service Store
British retail giant Tesco has opened the UK’s first completely self service store in Northampton.
The convenience store Tesco Express, has no checkouts that are staffed, and instead uses a set of five self service scanning tills which are overseen by a single staff member.
Tesco says the aim of the “assisted service store” was to speed up trips made to the store and increase efficiency. The retailer said however, that there were no plans to implement the checkout in its larger supermarkets.
A Tesco spokesman said: “Customers like the fact that there are five checkouts available. Before, you could have four manned checkouts but only one person working the till. It’s a lot quicker but some people have never used them before so a member of staff is there to assist.”
The head of the British Retail Consortium, Richard Dodd, says he believes the move could trigger the beginning of a technological revolution, which would be the end of manned checkouts at supermarkets.
Critics say that unmanned checkouts signal the end of “basic human interaction” between shoppers and check-out staff, which could mean job losses in the thousands.
But critics of the move warned that it signalled the end of “basic human interaction” between shoppers and check-out staff, and could ultimately result in thousands of job losses.
A spokesman for rival Asda was quoted by supermarket .co.uk as saying that “hell would probably freeze over” before it opened a store with no customer interaction on the checkouts.
Please Note - All Prices Quoted Are Correct at Time of Posting
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