Photo of Coles store highlights problem with 'self-service checkouts'
Debate has flared over the growing adaption of self-service shopping experiences after complaints surfaced online accusing it of neglecting the needs of the older generation.
An image showing lines of elderly customers backed up at checkouts inside a Coles in Western Australia sparked a heated discussion after it was uploaded to the supermarket’s Facebook page on Tuesday.
The photo was captured inside the Southlands Boulevarde shopping mall in Willetton, a southern suburb of Perth, and left many people agreeing the sight was becoming increasingly more common in major retailers.
“Stop relying on the self-serve checkouts, hire some staff,” the irritated shopper who shared the photo wrote.
She was proven not to be alone in her frustration as several other people agreed in comments to the post.
One person accused supermarkets of limiting staff so they could “force the use of self checkouts” on customers to “recoup the money spent on them”.
Another person claimed they always refused to “use self checkout regardless of the shop”.
Consumer behavioural analyst and managing director at Marketing Focus Barry Urquhart told Yahoo News Australia it was a common theme in a growing trend towards electronic efficiency that older shoppers were falling by the wayside.
Mr Urquhart said aged customers enjoyed the personal contact that historically came with their shopping experience.
“A lot of people are very lonely, they live in soulless homes, their social interaction is between those who are serving them,” he said.
“And when you remove that, the shopping experience is compromised depreciatively because it’s just a process and there’s no human interaction.
“It’s interesting because the older people are the more loyal of the supermarket customers, and they are, in a large part, loyal because of the personal interaction that they have with the ‘checkout chick’.”
The removal of the “check-out chick” interaction was the major player in dissatisfaction among elderly customers, and not necessarily because they couldn’t use the self-service machines, Mr Urquhart said.
“Many of them have iPads and many of them have NBN, so they’re not technophiles but they’re certainly not technophobes.”
Aldi’s win with 100 per cent customer interaction
Mr Urquhart also cited the “relentless” growth of Aldi since opening in Australia in 2000 to a point where it now occupies 12 per cent of the $104 billion supermarket industry.
“You never go to Aldi without being served by a checkout person. You’ve still got to bag yourself and take your own bags, but it’s a 100 per cent interaction between Aldi and the customer,” he said.
“I think that that highlights the fact that it’s not price alone or house brand products that is driving their increasing presence in the marketplace.”
He added human-operated tills could be completely gone within the next three to five years, with self-service checkouts proving more efficient for supermarkets in terms of resources.
“In very short order, you will see an increasing presence of no checkouts in Australia and around the world.”
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