The supermarkets are starting to get it!

I went to a Stop and Shop recently and I love this!


I've seen prototypes of this done by the IDEO product developers during an MIT Sloan exec ed course I was coordinating. It came up when they were working on redesigning the shopping cart and I couldn't imagine why this hadn't caught on yet.

You scan your own groceries as you shop and add and subtract things as you see fit. It tells you your running total at all times so there doesn't need to be any more embarassing moments at a register of putting something back.

From the store's perspective this seems to have very little downside outside the occasional thief but most, if not all stores, have the security gates that will go off if something hasn't been scanned anyway. Other than that, here's the benefits I see the store getting out of this:
1. Fewer cashiers needed to ring things up so lower labor costs. You have to repair machines once in a while but it is much closer to a fixed cost.
2. Since checkout, and the entire shopping experience, is probably shorter you can get more customers through and make more money
3. This 'no hassle' shopping will probably just outright attract customers, like me, who are tired of getting stuck behind the indecisive, once a month shopper buying 900 items who thought something was on sale but didn't realize s/he was looking at the price tag on the shelf above and the new cashier who doesn't know how to do something.

This may require more training for your employees but it still requires less of them and that's what I call progress.

All I can say is...It's about time!