Will DIY checkouts crush queue rage?

Angus Kidman
Wednesday, 20 December 2006 03:37

IT Industry - Strategy

A whopping three-quarters of Christmas shoppers hate standing around in queues, but better checkout technology may not necessarily be the best solution to their woes.

A survey of 1100 Australian consumers by NCR found that 75% found excessively long queues the most annoying aspect of Christmas shopping, outstripping such perennial annoyances as trying to find a park (66%) and a lack of even vaguely-clued up staff in the store (48%).

Digging deeper to find out who is responsible for the endless queues (and seemingly ignoring the possibility that it's the shoppers themselves who are to blame for not getting the job done earlier), a lack of staff was again the top reason, mentioned by 78% of people. Slow playing customers, aka as that stupid old fool who doesn't even think of getting their wallet out of their bag until their entire transaction is finished and they've argued about the specials, were blamed by 53% of respondents.

NCR, of course, has a vested interest in those results, since it markets self-service checkouts which, by definition, require fewer staff. According to the study, seven out of ten shoppers would choose stores that use such technology if it meant shorter queues.

That option was most popular amongst 16-24 year olds, with 87% favouring the use of DIY checkouts -- and there's the rub. Tech-savvy youth may be happy to use those systems, but there aren't likely to be many 'teens only' queues.

Once express checkouts are introduced, there's nothing to stop them being used by people who haven't got the slightest idea how they work, and who repeatedly make such elementary errors as not bagging items they've scanned or sticking their payment card in the wrong way. Sticking to online ordering might still be simpler, though if you've left it this late, you are, let's face it, screwed.