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FEATURE
Why now could be a good time to invest in self-serve checkouts With the rise of inflation, many people would feel nervous about investing in new equipment or technology. Despite this, Derek Moran decided that it was the right time for him to invest in new technology in his Eurospar store in Drogheda. He spoke to Fionnuala Carolan about the decision to purchase self-serve tills at this time
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ny investment in a business takes careful consideration and when times are tough many people decide to shelve any notions of spending, choosing instead to put the head down and wait until the tide turns. According to Vincent Jennings, chief executive of the CSNA, the cost and availability of labour and meeting the challenges of high energy bills are very real problems that require businesses to seriously consider making investments to protect their futures. “Now might be a good time to assess, and in some cases, reassess, making investments in products of a technological and environmentally friendly nature,” he says. “The energy crisis is seeing retailers paying literally twice the price per unit, coupled with the prospect of steep labour cost increases with the introduction of statutory sick pay, and the annual increases in National Minimum Wage rates. “All employers will be facing the prospect of paying a Living Wage in addition to making a
“Now might be a good time to assess, and in some cases, reassess, making investments in products of a technological and environmentally friendly nature,” says CSNA CEO Vincent Jennings
ShelfLife June 2022 | www.shelflife.ie
6% pension contribution to their employees’ auto enrolment pension fund.” The important information prospective purchasers of equipment wish to know is how quickly will they get payback? These periods of time reduce significantly when we experience massive energy cost increases and the prospect of substantial labour cost rises.
Eurospar Drogheda Derek Moran of Eurospar Drogheda undertook a revamp in 2019. He says he “blew the budget” with the revamp and that the money wasn’t there to do any more despite wanting to trial self-serve tills. “I had them pencilled in mentally,” he says “but I just didn’t have the money.” He admits to being one of the lucky ones during Covid as his store performed very strongly and it gave him a bit of cash flow and confidence to spend again. He decided that this was the time to invest in the self-serve tills. The quote that he had received pre-Covid had come down and now the cost for two selfserve tills was €55k. He had originally calculated that it would take 5.5 years to pay back the investment but now he feels it will pay for itself within three years, working this out by calculating the amount of people using the tills versus the cost of the equipment and hours saved. It was estimated that 20% of people would use the self-serve checkout but in fact it has risen to over 30% already. “To make it pay you need it to be over 20%,” he explains. “One of the most surprising things to me was that older people were using them. I thought they might be reluctant but not so. I suppose the multiples have led the way with this technology and people are used to it now.”
Reasons for investing He was interested in self-service tills for several reasons. During Covid, staffing issues including sickness and isolating became a real problem.
He felt like this was a way to manage in times of being short staffed. “It’s not about replacing staff,” he assures, “but about having extra capacity when needed.” What he likes most about them is that it improves customer service in the store. “It frees up staff for more interaction and chat with those who want that experience and the person in a rush can use the self-serve checkout rather than standing in line and getting annoyed,” he explains.
Issues Moran worked with CBE for installation and they carried out a pre-site survey to see what would work best and then conducted staff training on the tills. The tills are very user-friendly according to Moran and they have only experienced very minor glitches which are easily fixed. “The odd time confusion can occur for non-bar coded items for customers but there is a RAP (remote attendant program) station that enables the self-checkout attendant to support all activity from one location and keeps an eye
“One of the most surprising things to me was that older people were using self-serve tills. I thought they might be reluctant but not so,” says retailer Derek Moran
