Sainsbury’s is making its scan & shop service checkout-free, by letting customers pay in its SmartShop devices for the first time.
The trial aims to “reduce friction” while a separate pilot of AI cameras at self-checkouts is tackling theft.
Sainsbury’s is trialling the new payment-enabled SmartShop handsets into two stores, Richmond and Kempston, its future stores director Darren Sinclair told The Grocer.
At the end of their shop customers tap their card on the device to pay. Once the payment has gone through they can print their receipt at a physical bay, or ask for it to be emailed to them. They then return their device to the SmartShop ports when they leave the store.
Customers who opt to use the SmartShop app on their phones have been able to pay in the app since 2022, but Sinclair said consumer research had found many shoppers preferred to use a physical handset to save their phone battery.
“It’s a bit more ergonomic,” Sinclair said. “I think about this as trying to reduce friction, improve payment and simplify the shopping journey, as well as the future potential space.”
There are advantages for Sainsbury’s to encourage more shoppers to use SmartShop, Sinclair said.
“From a heatmapping perspective we can see how people shop. We don’t see the physical customer, just see the heat, so we can see which ends are looked at, which screens are looked at and the flow around the store.
“That’s massively insightful when we are working out store formats, or when we are doing Nectar screens for suppliers.”
The trial aims to test the “concept” and make it more “user-friendly”. The self-pay handsets cannot yet process colleague discounts or swipe a physical Nectar card.
To minimise shrinkage, store staff still occasionally intervene to see what a shopper has in their basket.
Sainsbury’s wants to make stores ‘easier’ to shop
The supermarket has also begun the introduction of new video scanning technology to its self-checkouts, as part of a “next generation” estate-wide till upgrade announced in August 2024.
The anti-theft cameras – which Sainsbury’s confirmed are now in a small number of stores – scan the items in a basket and the system informs shoppers if they neglect to scan items.
It’s similar to tech in use by Home Bargains, as revealed by The Grocer last month.
“We regularly review the security measures in our stores and our decisions to implement them are based on a range of factors, including offering our customers a smooth checkout experience,” a Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said.
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