Using a mix of checkouts, scos and self-service kiosks

Convenience shopping is becoming an ever more important trend in retail with customers preferring to make multiple smaller shopping trips over one single shopping trip. This change in customer shopping habits is driving a change in the solutions that are required to cater to this new style of shopping. Whereas it was previously sufficient to install traditional checkouts in your shops and staff them with checkout operators, these smaller shopping trips require retailers to adopt different solutions including self-checkouts and self-service kiosks.

In this article, we explore how convenience retailers including convenience shops / stores, mini supermarkets, and non-food shops can deliver great convenience shopping with the perfect combination of traditional checkouts, self-checkouts (SCOs), and self-service kiosks.

THE CONVENIENCE SHOPPING TREND

Online shopping and the world of eCommerce have created a different type of customer. This new type of customer demands instant service, minimal queuing, and the freedom to shop their own way at every stage of their shopping experience. Online retailers are becoming ever more adept at catering to the convenience customer and are gaining market share and new customers as a result.

As convenience trend continues to gather pace, retailers are faced with a choice: deliver a convenience-driven shopping experience or lose customers to businesses that are serving the convenience customer. Convenience shopping does not signal the end of traditional retail; it is alive and well. In fact, it can be seen as an opportunity for retailers to evolve their business model to meet the needs of this new type of customer and regain lost market share from online and eCommerce retailers.

Fortunately for traditional retailers, the next generation of customers including Generation Z strongly value the physical shopping experience. Research by the International Council of Shopping Centers found that 75% of generation Z consumers believe that shopping in a physical store / shop offers a better experience than online shopping. Generation Z already hold a significant amount of purchasing power and with this set to increase in the future, there is a clear opportunity for retailers who can effectively target them.

Businesses that can deliver a convenient shopping experience to every generation of customers will be primed to win new customers and increase their market share. The question that they now face is how to deliver a convenient shopping experience and what technology will this require?

CONVENIENCE-DRIVEN CHECKOUT WITH CHECKOUTS & SELF-CHECKOUTS (SCOS)

Delivering a checkout zone for customers that expect convenience shopping is easy with the right combination of traditional checkouts and self-checkouts (SCO). Both solutions can be integrated into a single sleek checkout zone even within stores / shops with limited floorspace. Pan Oston offer solutions to suit almost every retail space and through intelligent design our product families include solutions with smaller footprints.

By choosing a Pan Oston checkout solution, your customers will be able to experience checking out like never before. All our solutions have been designed to optimize the checkout zone by delivering an optimal front-end mix, plug & play hardware and intelligent customer guidance systems with LED indicators and digital displays.

SLIM MERGE: COMBINING A TRADITIONAL CHECKOUT & SELF-CHECKOUTS

Providing convenience in the checkout zone is best achieved by offering a solution that can cater to every generation of customer for every type of shopping trip. SLIM Merge combines a traditional checkout with a row of self-checkouts to deliver the ultimate flexibility for your store / shop and its customers.

The traditional in-store checkout caters for bigger shopping trips involving multiple items and generations of customers that prefer a traditional checkout including gen X, baby boomers and traditionalists while the self-checkouts serve smaller shopping trips with fewer items and the typically more tech savvy millennials and gen z customers.

SLIM Merge excels at providing a great customer experience to every customer with an integrated LED customer guidance system for queue and flow management, flexible bags and input options so customers can shop their way and multiple layout configuration options so your business benefits from a combination checkout that perfectly matches the customer flows in your shop / store.

The possibilities with SLIM Merge are almost endless and its ability to enhance your store design while also making the most of your valuable retail space with its compact footprint is almost unrivaled.

Føtex Food, a Danish supermarket chain with 105 stores, are one of our many customers that have adopted SLIM Merge. They have adopted our solution as it has helped them to implement a SCO solution without having to decrease their number of traditional checkouts. SLIM Merge's space saving design was the perfect match for their space limited checkout zones. Føtex's adoption of SLIM Merge has been an outstanding success with 60% of their customers using it for checking out. They have also been able to increase checkout points by 20%, achieve a 50:50 self-checkout to traditional checkout ratio and decrease checkout operator costs.

By adopting SLIM Merge, Føtex are able to efficiently serve every generation of customer and deliver the convenience-driven shopping experience that customers demand. They are also ready for the future of retail due to the modular design and hardware independent components of SLIM Merge which helps them to effortlessly upgrade their hardware as new technology becomes available. Why not book an appointment with one of our self-checkout specialists to find out how we can help you deliver the future of retail in your stores / shops?

HELPING CUSTOMERS TO SHOP THEIR WAY WITH SELF CHECKOUTS (SCOS)

Self-checkouts are the perfect solution to complement existing traditional checkouts or to create a dedicated self-scanning zone. Your customers will appreciate the enhanced shopping experience that our SCOs can deliver. Each of your customers will be able to shop their way and complete the checkout process with minimal input from your staff.

Our ESSENCE and SLIM product families offer a suite of self-checkouts for your business to choose from. Each SCO solution has its own unique design and features, so we are confident that you will find an SCO that is the perfect fit for your brand at Pan Oston. The specialists at Pan Oston are ready to help you find the perfect SCO solution based on our extensive retail experience.

Making the most of your valuable retail space is easy with our self-checkouts as they all have a small footprint and they can be configured in a way that makes best use of the space in your store.

INFORMATION AT YOUR CUSTOMERS' FINGERTIPS WITH SELF-SERVICE KIOSKS

Self-service kiosks have an important role to play in delivering a convenience-driven shopping experience for retailers in every sector. They are particularly effective at putting information at your customers' fingertips and acting as a single point of service for your customers during their shopping experience.

Customers can use a self-service kiosk to find information about your products / services, access customer support and pre-order products that may be out of stock in-store. In each case, your customer is empowered to interact with your business and complete the task in hand in their own way. The benefits of this to you as a retailer are significant: more satisfied customers, an improved customer experience and lower employee costs.

Start serving the 73% of consumers that want self-service technology with their solution of choice by choosing Pan Oston. Our kiosks are modular, hardware & software independent and completely customizable so they can match your corporate identity and fit seamlessly into your store's design.

Discover our award-winning BLUE FIRE kiosks and find out how they can help your business to put information at your customers' fingertips and deliver a convenience-driven shopping experience. Our specialists are ready to help you find the perfect self-service solution. Book an appointment with a member of our UK team today.

PAN OSTON CAN HELP YOU DELIVER GREAT CONVENIENCE SHOPPING

Our dedicated team of checkout, self-checkout (SCO) and self-service specialists are ready to help your business deliver great convenience shopping for every generation of customers. We are able to deliver future-proof retail solutions and manage every step of the process from design to installation. Our current client base spans multiple sectors and includes food and non-food retailers of all sizes. Pan Oston's team of over 165+ specialists with over 50 years of retail experience have in-house design, manufacturing and project management capabilities that are ready to be deployed on your project. Choosing Pan Oston means that you can draw upon the expertise of an award-winning company that has won the prestigious Red Dot Design award and holds an ISO 9001 accreditation.

Pan Oston is trusted to deliver innovative retail solutions by leading UK and international brands including M&S, Starbucks and SPAR. Why not find out how we can help make convenience shopping possible in your shops / stores? Contact our UK sales team today to discuss your requirements with one of our specialists.