Self-checkout
 

Self-checkout is an alternative to the traditional cashier-staffed checkouts, whereby the customer scans the barcodes on their own items and pays for their purchase at the end of the shopping trip, without direct input to the process by the store staff. Self-checkout forms an integral part of the overall self-service strategy which is becoming increasingly popular both  with the retailers and the consumers during the past few years. To the retail organization, it delivers tangible improvements to sore operations, drives revenue increase, lowers transaction costs and serves as enabler to deliver better service to their customers. For the consumer, it offers the most important benefit of not having to queue anymore. They have the choice of scanning the articles themselves, avoiding the queue and paying at the unmanned checkout station, or proceeding to the traditional checkout.

Total self-service solution

The pressure has been mounting on the retailers during the past tough years to optimize their self-service offerings and drive better ROI from their IT investments. Which is why Re-Vision have designed an innovative self-service solution, combining self-scanning and self-checkout on the same software platform.
This helps the retailer to address several issues at the same time:

• Minimize initial investment, both from hardware and integration perspective
• Offer self-service concept to all types of customers: self-scanning for large basket and self-checkout for small-basket shoppers
• Increase ROI

If you would like to know more please download our Self-Checkout Solution Brochure here.

Advantages 
 

Low initial investment in hardware

Self-checkout solution from Re-Vision is based on the smaller kiosks - for the retail organization it means that there is no need to invest in expensive and shop-floor consuming self-checkout systems for small basket purchases.

Short implementation times and low integration costs

An out-of-the-box solution pre-integrated with self-scanning can be deployed within very short timeframes and offers very easy connection to the existing POS and Back-Office systems in one go, using standard interfacing and connector modules.

Faster Return on Investment

Short implementation times in combination with lower investment in hardware offer retail organizations all the benefits of the self-checkout concept with a much lower initial investment.

Low TCO

Minimized investment in hardware + short implementation times + centralized support and maintenance environment ensure that retail organizations benefit from faster ROI, and reduce the total cost of ownership for the complete self-service solution (self-checkout and self-scanning provided on one platform).

Low checkout and cash-handling costs
 

Functional benefits

By utilizing a single platform, the combination of self-scanning and self-checkout from Re-Vision allows retail organizations to:

• Send messages and notifications to the attendant terminal (ex. customer at station 3 has age-restricted items)
• Perform service-checks (re-scanning) on both types of customers
• Integrate with Loyalty program
• Benefit from the centralized database on all customer transactions this results in elevated customer service which in turn translates into increased customer loyalty and satisfaction

History

The first supermarket self-checkout system in the world was installed in 1992 in the Price Chopper Supermarkets in Clifton Park, New York. The system was invented by Dr. Howard Schneider and  patented as Optimal Robotics in 1992. Initially they received the name of "self-checkout robots" and performed surprisingly well at Price Chopper Supermarkets. The Kroger chain, and later many other supermarkets throughout the U.S, Canada, U.K., and Australia followed soon. By 2003, automated checkouts had become widespread, with most being supplied by NCR, Fujitsu/ICL and IBM. As of the end of 2008, there were 92,600 self checkout units worldwide. According to the study by SelfServiceWorld.com, this number is estimated to reach 430,000 units by 2014.