You may or may not remember – I spoke a while ago about how Sainsbury’s were working on an app – on which you can scan items and then pay for them!
Guess what – they’ve now got it across the Holborn Circus Store in London on a three month pilot!
That’s right – Sainsbury’s has launched the UK’s first till-free grocery store at the central London branch, which allows shoppers to pay with their phone and then walk out of the shop without going through a checkout.
Customers use the app to scan groceries as they walk round the store, bag them and then pay in the app, scanning a code to confirm payment.
Now, where have I heard about this concept before Bal?
Amazon are doing it…
For us Brits – especially at Sainsbury’s – more than 80% of payments were cashless (honestly, I thought it would’ve been higher!)
Now this pilot – involves a revamped store to cater for the ‘food to go’ people. Alcohol and tobacco have been removed because it takes ‘time’ – and by that, I mean ‘people time’ to verify the age of the person buying it. I’m sure in due course, there’ll be verification steps within the app to allow this… and maybe a shelf locked with a pin code to allow access.
So what’s the feedback?
A beaming lady declared the system “easy to use and a complete timesaver” – and the overall feedback has been positive.
Will we see more of this? – I believe so….