Intermarché’s Dual-Scale Kiosk

Druckversion

Intermarché is a French chain of supermarkets noted for their convenient locations. There are at present 2000 stores, 1800 of them in France. They focus on low prices and shopper-friendly stores adapted to their customers’ needs.
 
For many years, Intermarché had been using traditional point-of-sale systems to complete transactions. As its stores have become very popular in recent years, long lines had become commonplace and were detracting from the overall shopping experience. Investigating new ways to maximise store throughput, Intermarché chose one of its stores to start experimenting with self-checkout systems more than two years ago.
 
Intermarché Longs Champs in Rennes decided to innovate its self-checkout processes again last year, with a customised shopping system built with 32 new IBM trolley-based self-checkout kiosks. This was the first of its kind for the French marketplace – it uses a set of dual-floor scales to support the self-checkout process, meaning customers can complete their own transaction by placing their trolley on the first scale, scanning their items and then placing them on an empty cart located on the second scale prior to paying. Each item is weighed separately and a control is made by accessing a security database which prevents theft or lost revenue from overlooked products.
 
For basket shoppers, a fixed support at hand height is installed on the floor scale to accept customer baskets with up to 10-20 products instead of just trolleys with 50-150 products. The store manager can change the self-checkout systems from ‘trolley mode’ to ‘basket mode’ when required, which enables the store manager to adapt the payment lanes based on traffic and specific consumer needs.
 
The trolley SCOs are simple to use: after shopping, the customer scans one product after the other and puts the products in the trolley, then pays with a credit card, with the possibility to use a loyalty card. At every important step of the checking, the consumer is guided with instructions that appear on the screen as well as voice instructions. The customer can also choose the language (French or English) beforehand.
The device includes a system preventing fraud: each product that is not scanned automatically generates a wrong weight that blocks the system. The intervention of a checkout operator is then needed. The checkout operator helps the customer when he has technical problems or when he wants to pay with cheque, cash or a luncheon voucher. Christian Legendre, owner of Intermarché Rennes Longs Champs: “The customer deals with quite a new technology, so the checkout operator represents the key human element at the heart of the system. The work of the checkout operators is today more commercial, they are more focused on welcoming and advising the clients.”
 
Within the first three months, 65% of shoppers were using this check-out method. As a result, the store has experienced fewer lines and increased throughput. Because the IBM self-checkout kiosks reduce checkout times by 30% on average, employees can now focus on assisting customers in the aisles and enhancing the shopping experience. The new solution has even extended benefits to the company’s human resources department, which reports that cashier scheduling is now easier. Perhaps most importantly, the new IBM solution has attracted more shoppers, translating to increased revenue.