Supermarket chain to axe self-service checkouts in all stores

A UK supermarket chain is set to axe self-service checkouts in all of its stores, following customer feedback from frustrated shoppers.

These days, you’ll often walk into a shop and find there isn’t a single soul on the tills. That’s all well and good if you’re just popping in for a pint of milk or a bottle of wine, but if you’re grabbing a bunch of stuff, the self-service machines don’t always feel too tempting.

It’s also never fun when your shopping experience is rudely disrupted by an UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA, or when your packet of coriander is too light for the packing zone to pick up on.

Well, one supermarket has decided to turn its back on all those newfangled, tech-savvy ways by scrapping the DIY option altogether.

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Booths – a high end chain dubbed the ‘Waitrose of the North’ - is believed to the first UK supermarket to do so, saying in a statement: "We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience and therefore we have taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores.

“Delighting customers with our warm northern welcome is part of our DNA and we continue to invest in our people to ensure we remain true to that ethos.”

The supermarket chain has headquarters in Preston, with stores in locations including Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.

Booths’ managing director Nigel Murray said the new move follows feedback from customers, who have found there is often ‘all sorts of fussing about’ when paying via self-service machines.

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He told BBC Radio Lancashire: "Our customers have told us this over time, that the self-scan machines that we've got in our stores they can be slow, they can be unreliable, they're obviously impersonal.”

Murray added: "We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you've got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don't know one different apple versus another for example.

"There's all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you put any alcohol in your basket somebody's got to come and check that you're of the right age."