Self-checkout (SCO) has had its ups and downs. From being praised to being vilified by retailers and consumers alike, it appears that our relationship with SCO is love-hate: you either love it or you hate it.

Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay. Not only is it increasing its penetration in grocery, it’s expanding beyond that traditional base to make headway in big box specialty (Fujitsu recently announced a deployment at Canadian Tire). Precursors to SCO are even finding their way into department stores with price checkers mounted throughout the stores and some major department store retailers reorganizing themselves with consolidated checkout stations closer to store entrances.

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The rationale for these independents for investing in SCO is that many of their customers are already trained on using self-checkout, and so are coming to expect that SCO is part of the shopping experience – at least for groceries. To these retailers, SCO is a customer service play required to keep up with larger chain competitors. They view it as a customer service benefit, increasing the amount of choice a consumer has over how they go about buying their groceries. Both of the panelists said that they did not reduce labor when they implemented SCO, but reinvested labor dollars that SCO freed up into keeping more full service lanes open during high volume hours. Both also mentioned that the benefits came primarily from increasing the checkout capacity in the front of the store without taking away selling square feet.

The panelists shared their experience, emphasizing some lessons learned the hard way:

Provide all of the same services at SCO that consumers are used to getting at full service registers. Reasor’s had not enabled cash back from debit transactions at SCO at the very beginning, thinking that SCO customers would not be heavy users of the option. They quickly realized this was not the case. Consumers expect all of the same services at SCO as at any other register.

Pay close attention to spacing and placement. Both panelists emphasized this. There needs to be enough space within the “pod” of self-checkout stations so that carts can maneuver – not less than seven feet and more like eight. Also, environmental factors can play a role: Reasor’s, with their locations in “tornado alley” found that high winds impacted the function of the scales. For independent retailers, placement and spacing is particularly important because of the expense of installation. Reasor’s didn’t discover the issue with wind until after several stores had been installed – no small percentage of their total chain. While they could correct it in future installations, it’s a hard hit to have to go back in and fix the earlier installs.

Take the time to educate your customers and employees. The panelists noted that it’s important to educate consumers – to use signage and lane lights to make sure that consumers understand that SCO is an option for them, and to help them understand that SCO is not a replacement for standard express lanes – that there will be no reduction in service options available to them at checkout. Employee buy-in is also important. Redner’s encountered employee resistance to SCO because employees thought that the implementation was targeting labor budget. Redner’s had to make sure employees understood that labor budget was not being cut – that SCO was being implemented to boost customer service and overall checkout capacity.

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Self-checkout is increasingly a fact of life, but even through this year still has a reputation of a “new” technology. Independent grocers face the stiffest competition, the least amount of capital available for investment in technology solutions, and the least amount of risk tolerance for experimenting and testing new concepts. When these retailers speak of SCO not in terms of ROI, but in terms of staying competitive, it’s clear SCO has passed the tipping point.

Copyright © 2007 RSR Research LLC.

Full text article located at http://www.retailsystemsresearch.com/_document/summary/349

Colemans Food Centre Receives 2007 GS1 Canada Supply Chain Efficiency Award

TORONTO, ON, October 30, 2007 – GS1 Canada, Canada’s expert in collaborative commerce and global supply chain standards, has announced Colemans Food Centre (Colemans) as the winner of the 2007 GS1 Canada Supply Chain Efficiency Award. The winner was revealed at the “Grocery Innovations Canada Dinner with the Philosopher Kings” on Monday, October 29, 2007 at the Toronto Congress Centre.

Established in 1934, Colemans operates 12 corporately owned retail food outlets throughout Newfoundland, including its own warehouse distribution centre. Colemans has combined computer-assisted ordering and space management tools to fuel growth and create an efficient supply chain.

“We are extremely pleased to have received this award,” said Scott Bennett, director, Information Technology, Colemans Food Centre. “Controlling inventory by using leading-edge technology has led to efficiencies in ordering and space management, resulting in a significant increase in our overall productivity.”

As the award winner, Colemans will receive complimentary membership to GS1 Canada for a three-year period, extensive coverage and promotion of their organization and solution through various forms of marketing and communication materials, and an award seal to use in their marketing collateral.

“Colemans Food Centre has demonstrated leadership in supply chain management,” said N. Arthur Smith, CEO, GS1 Canada. “We are proud to present this award to a company that is active in providing and promoting supply chain solutions.”

First announced at Grocery Innovations Canada 2005, Canada’s premier grocery industry exposition and conference, this award is designed to recognize members of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG) who have successfully introduced a standards-based technology solution within their organization’s supply chain.

iControl-Enterprise is an Internet-based enterprise reporting and communications tool specifically tailored for restaurant operations using the POSitouch point of sale system.

It offers a comprehensive alert system, which will tell you when certain events you have deemed important have occurred. iControl also presents a full set of reports, most of which can be sliced and diced by geographic area, by time periods you select (including 15 minute reports), by menu items and categories (down to each individual menu item), by job department, employee for payroll reports and by inventory category and ingredient for food cost and inventory reports.

iControl-Enterprise has a comprehensive communications tool that includes, a full-fledged intra-company e-email system, a message board to post global messages, a discussion forum where users can post questions or comments and have others reply to, or post procedures. iControl-Enterprise has an events calendar, to track any important event in your organization along with a Task Manager for assigning important tasks that need to be completed.

iControl-Enterprise is the only enterprise solution that allows updating of the POSitouch system. Updating includes adding new menu items, changing prices, changing screens, new inventory worksheets, and updating vendor lists and vendor worksheets. All of this can be completed from the central corporate office.

iControl is very easy to use and the speed of the website is beyond compare.

Read more about iControl on the AM/PM website.

Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc. has introduced the TeamPoS 3000 line of point-of-service (POS) terminals and kiosks. The new system extends the benefits of its predecessors (TeamPoS 2000 series) with enhancements that simplify retailers’ point-of-service operations, increase store performance and decrease maintenance time and costs.

The TeamPoS 3000 offers new benefits including improved reliability, enhanced serviceability and support for the latest peripheral technology. With consistent configuration and components across the product family (broad range of terminal and kiosk models), maintenance and integration are simplified.

Primary Enhancements:

- All major components are accessible from the front, reducing maintenance costs

- Meets RoHS and WEEE “green” standards to improve environment

- New peripherals are USB-only for quick replacement

- Controllers are backward compatible with legacy TeamPoS 2000 peripherals

- Additional port capacity with add-on modules

- Serial ATA hard drives

- Optional Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

- Optional integrated Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

- Optional long-life battery backup

For full details of Fujitsu TeamPOS 3000, visit here

Alberta Food Service Show
Oct. 28-29, 2007
Calgary Roundup Centre

Debuting in Calgary, CRFA’s newest show brings together top suppliers and key buyers looking for new products and new ideas to grow their operations, in the number one growth market for Canada’s restaurant business.

Alberta’s $6 billion foodservice industry is the number one growth market for Canada’s restaurant business. The Alberta Foodservice Show provides a focus on the dynamic provincial industry where leading suppliers showcase their products and services. This show offers foodservice suppliers a face-to-face marketplace to reach industry buyers who want new products and new ideas to grow their operations.

Come visit AM/PM at booth 404 and 406, in the Groupex section.

For more info on the show, visit CRFA here.

Advanced Self-checkout Systems Offer Improved Flexibility, Scalability and Reliability; Ripe for Expanded Use in Non-Grocery Formats.

Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc. announced the U-Scan Genesis™ family of advanced self-checkout systems.

U-Scan Genesis offers a wide portfolio of hardware and software technology advances including:

Small Footprint – redesigned to offer the one of the smallest self-checkout footprints available, making it attractive for retail formats that have limited floor space.

Retail-hardened Fujitsu TeamPoS 3000 terminals – designed to withstand the rigors of high-volume checkout environments with easy serviceability.

Two-handed scanning – enables shoppers to scan items one after the other and then place in the bag to further accelerate the check-out process. Shoppers do not have to scan and bag one item before scanning and bagging another.

“Above scanner” bill and coin accepting and dispensing units located together – speeds the transaction process and reduces the chance of customers leaving money behind.

ATM-style “follow me” LED lighting – guides users through the checkout process.

More intuitive customer interfaces support up to 12 languages - makes the checkout process more efficient.

Fujitsu’s new F53 bill dispensing unit – improves dispensing rates while reducing bill jams – the most common self-checkout service and maintenance issue.

Coin hopper or coin canister dispensing units – allows retailer to choose the option that’s best for their environment.

Metrologic scanner/scale – offers accurate first-pass scan rates with 6-sided, 360° scanning.

Read this entire news story here.

NCR Corporation today introduced the NCR RealPOS 80XRT point-of-sale (POS) workstation, designed to extend POS capabilities without slowing mission-critical transaction processing. Featuring next-generation architecture with support for advanced Intel vPro technology, the NCR RealPOS 80XRT delivers industry-leading power, scalability and systems management capabilities to the point of service.

The NCR RealPOS 80XRT delivers industry-leading power and scalability through a range of single-core and dual-core processors, including the new Intel Core™2 Duo processor. In addition, the NCR RealPOS 80XRT features enhanced systems management capabilities using Intel vPro technology to increase uptime and help drive down retailer’s total cost of ownership.

Extreme retail technology extends POS capabilities without slowing mission-critical transaction processing using Intel® vPro™ technology.

Read this entire article here.

Find out more about the NCR RealPOS 80xrt.

New Chip Label Technology Available for Independent Grocers

StoreNext Retail Technologies Pricer® next-generation electronic shelf labels (ESLs) for independent grocers. ESLs includes technologies and capabilities that offer investment protection, better profit potential and ROI for grocers and expanded information available to the consumer.

The infrared technology of the Pricer C² Electronic Shelf Label System eliminates virtually all physical activity associated with changing prices. Using an existing back office system linked to the Pricer system, independent grocers can instantly modify and validate prices by unit, department, or even storewide. The large, easy-to-read high-contrast labels are a convenient, attractive way to get shoppers’ attention on sales or other promotions at the grocery shelf, end of aisle displays and the produce section.

With the Pricer C² system, grocers have the flexibility to implement price changes on literally hundreds or even thousands of items per day, depending on the amount of items in the store. The new system also can be used to display and track information such as stock levels, last order dates, shipment quantities and more. With the click on the new infrared key in the direction of the ESL, the grocer can conveniently access planogram information such as facings – right at the shelf edge.

See full text of StoreNext article here

Independent Grocer enhances shopper service with belted and bagged self-checkout systems

Sorbara’s Shop n’ Save, an independent grocery chain with five stores in the Pittsburgh area, has deployed Fujitsu U-Scan self-checkout systems from StoreNext Retail Technologies LLC.

“Having a combination of bagged and belted self-checkouts made perfect sense for us,” said Jim Sorbara, owner of Sorbara’s Shop n’ Save. “It gives our customers a choice of using self-checkout for large-volume orders, or the ability to get in and out quickly when they only need a few items. We can also have four self-checkout lanes open with just one cashier during high-traffic hours, enabling more employees to assist customers with their needs throughout the store.”

Each installation includes two of the recently-released belted self-checkout units plus two five-bag U-Scan stations. All of these shopper stations are integrated with StoreNext’s ScanMaster™ point-of-sale (POS) software at Sorbara’s.

Visit StoreNext web site here for the full scoop.

On-the-go consumers prefer to handle an increasing number of transactions themselves through self-service devices, and are more likely to do business with companies that make it easier to for them to do so, according to a major new study conducted by BuzzBack Market Research for NCR Corporation

More than three out of four (77 percent) of the 633 U.S. and Canadian consumers polled said they are more likely to do business with organizations that offer self-service, and 92 percent value combining mobile devices – like mobile phones or PDAs – with the Internet and self-service kiosks or ATMs to improve their overall service experience.

“People want more control of their interaction with your business,” said NCR President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Nuti. “Why wait for assistance with transactions they can more quickly and easily do themselves at guaranteed quality? Consumers increasingly expect to be served where and when they choose, and are putting pressure on businesses and government agencies to deliver seamless service through the integration of self-serve devices, including the Internet, mobile devices and multipurpose kiosks.”

The top-three locations where respondents would like to see this type of convenience are in airports (70 percent); malls (65 percent); and grocery stores (55 percent).

Click here to read the full Business Wire article.