Tesco launches completely CASHLESS store and cuts queuing time to just 45 seconds
Britain’s biggest retailer is trialling a checkout-free method of payment for its convenience stores
TESCO has launched a completely cashless store where it claims to have cut queuing time to just 45 seconds.
Britain’s biggest retailer is trialling a checkout-free method of payment at a staff-only branch in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
Customers will now be able to scan products on their mobile devices and then walk out with them, the supermarket giant has announced.
The smartphone app is being trialled at a Tesco Express convenience store located in the campus of its headquarters at Welwyn Garden City.
Steven Blair, Tesco's convenience boss, said: "Using your mobile device you select some products, put them into your basket on your device and then just walk out of the store.
"The feedback is very good on it but it's super early.”
U.S. giant Amazon opened a checkout-free grocery store in Seattle in January, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter bricks-and-mortar retail.
The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back.
Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous – customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file.
Tesco Chief Executive Dave Lewis said security implications had to be considered as there was a danger of increased product theft.
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"If the margin in the business is 2 or 3 per cent, you don't have to lose much to make it unprofitable," he said.
Blair said the store was serving customers at its checkouts in about 45 seconds, versus 90 seconds for a similar sized store in the estate.
He noted that some Tesco convenience stores in Britain were already down to just 20 per cent of payments by cash, making a cashless roll-out likely in the future.
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