Some people love the speed and efficiency of supermarket self-checkouts. But then there’s the not recognising your bag, the unexpected item in the bagging area, the surprising item on the scale, the point-blank refusal to scan something, the constant coupon confusion, and that’s all before the long – so long – wait to get your alcohol or paracetamol approved.
Booths, a high-end northern England supermarket chain, is siding with the dislikers and has announced it is removing self-checkouts in the majority of its stores. “We’re not great fans of self-checkouts,” the Booths managing director, Nigel Murray, told the Grocer. “We pride ourselves on great customer service and you can’t do that through a robot.”
The chain is believed to be the first in the UK to go back to fully staffed tills and is swimming against the machines-tide, which has led to more big supermarkets adding trolley self-service bays to existing basket self-service and self-scan.
All of which means fewer tills staffed by human beings which, as many argue, might be the only social interaction of the day for people who live alone.
A spokesperson for Booths said the plan was to remove the self-service tills from all but two of its stores. “We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience and therefore we have taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores,” the spokesperson said. “We have based this not only on what we feel is the right thing to do but also having received feedback from our customers.”
Booths has been owned by the same family since the tea dealer Edwin Henry Booth opened its first store in Blackpool in 1847. It has 28 stores across Lancashire, Cumbria, Cheshire and Yorkshire and has been called a “northern Waitrose”, although it may argue that Waitrose is a “southern Booths”.
Booths said its founding philosophy was: “Sell the best goods available, in attractive stores, staffed with first class assistants.”
The spokesperson said: “Delighting customers with our warm northern welcome is part of our DNA and we continue to invest in our people to ensure we remain true to that ethos.”
The two stores where self-service would be kept were the Lake District outlets in Windermere and Keswick, which could get very busy when large numbers of tourists turned up, Murray said.
Booths began introducing self-checkouts six years ago. As with other supermarkets, it was a way of managing the wage bill and increasing efficiency, Murray said. But the technology could be problematic and detract from the enjoyment of shopping at Booths, he added.
Murray flagged the need for customers to wait for staff to visually ID them when buying alcohol as a downside, along with problems registering the correct items and weights.
The decision by Booths could be seen as a bold one, given many industry experts see machines as being vital to the future of supermarkets. Tesco even promises “no scanning, no checkouts, no queues” at its new checkout assistant-free GetGo stores in London, Birmingham and Welwyn Garden City.
Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Amazon are said to be going down the same route.
• This article was amended on 12 November 2023. An earlier version said that Booths would be keeping the self-checkouts in Windermere and Kendal; this should have said Windermere and Keswick.
