To be worried about this trend? - Tesco check-out free store.

[mustlovegin]

It was first started by Amazon Fresh I believe.

Now Tesco are trying to do the same with their first check-out free store.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58951984

Basically you cannot physically get into the store unless you have the Tesco App. You also cannot pay by means of cash or a credit/debit card - you are made to pay for your purchases through the App.

Isn't this potentially discriminatory plus it forces customers to fit into their ecosystem and comply with their restrictions?

This particular store is in an area with many council flats nearby. Elderly and disabled people used to shop there and will now need to walk at least 15 minutes to do their shopping.

Where are we heading with all of this? Shouldn't we have more options and freedom not less?

Wouldn't be an app fan as my phone is a bit crap and battery dies. I do love scan and shop, its brilliant with the kids as the checkout was the one trigger point with shopping in the past

Is it to reduce shop lifting?
I would do my shopping elsewhere. If you’re in central London you’ve got more choice than the majority of the country who manage to do their shopping

I do love scan and shop

It's different when you are given the option (as is the case at some large Sainsbury's stores)

At this Tesco store you are not let through the turnstiles or shop there without the app.

@blueirises

There was a massive buzz about the first Amazon Fresh when it opened in Ealing Broadway; it was on the news and everything. But last time I was in Ealing a few weeks ago there was one customer and about 10 staff looking bored. I think it might be sobering to realise that everything you buy is tracked by the likes of Amazon. So I'm not sure Tesco is going in the right direction here.

My daughter shops there twice a week

I'd love this and it totally makes sense to me. Scan on the way in and then just help yourself to whatever you want and walk out. No queues and no need to unpack everything and repack it. If you don't like it don't use it!

I worry about the spread of covid and the health of my old dog. I may like or not like how a shop decides to operaste it but why would i` worry about it?

@malmi

I'd love this and it totally makes sense to me. Scan on the way in and then just help yourself to whatever you want and walk out. No queues and no need to unpack everything and repack it. If you don't like it don't use it!

How does an app on your phone know what you have taken off the shelves?

The app just scans you in and identifies who you are. The shop then watches you and tracks what items you take using cameras and weight sensors.

I'd love to be able to shop somewhere like that but I can see the issues you have with it. Hopefully not too many people will be inconvenienced.

The OP mentioned the elderly and disabled and needing to walk at least 15 minutes to the shop.

I'm disabled myself and I do home shopping using a computer with assistive software. Relatives in their 80s and 90s do home shopping too.

No excuses really when online shopping (Asda/Tesco) has been around since the early 00s. If it's a cost issue (a computer is too expensive), then get a £100 Android phone, stick it on your wifi or go sim-only with data for £6/month if you don't have internet.

Does one Tesco store constitute a 'trend' now? Someone better inform the OED.

This is right by my work. There's another Tesco express 5 mins away on Fleet St, if you're that desperate. But within 50 yards of that Tesco is a Sainsbury's and an M&S.

Somehow I think people will just about cope.

Oooh -this is close to home, will give it a try.

I can't remember the last time I used cash in the supermarket - but I do hate the self checkouts if I've got more than a few items; the unloading/packing in a tiny space (other than local waitrose, which has better size counters) is a pain.
None of the really close supermarkets have the scan and go options; this looks good.

Not especially close to covent garden; Holborn covers an area larger than you'd think, but then Coven Garden's not exactly stuffed with supermarkets. There's a fair smattering of other mini supermarkets near this one though.

My daughter shops there twice a week

I think it's ok as long as it's an alternative and not forced on people. Twenty-somethings may not be aware of the potential pitfalls in all of this and just see 'convenience'.

Twenty years ago it was all about data protection, consumer rights, and individual freedom.

Nowadays our behaviour is increasingly prescribed by (in some cases global) 'platforms'. You want to sell on-line, you need to abide by Amazon or e-bay 'rules', you want to buy food, you are dictated to by an app, and so on.

How long will it be before the financial system is destabilised again because one organisation whimsically decides that shoppers should bank with such and such organisation. How long will it be before you cannot shop for cheap food because a large retailer has decided their app is only compatible with Apple, etc .

Also, our data and privacy can be breached at any time, we are given little reassurance and we have basically become the product in a lot of instances.

It's late and I know I'm ranty, but this is unlikely to end well.

Does one Tesco store constitute a 'trend' now?

Well, the purpose of a pilot is to roll it out to other stores at a later date, surely?

@mustlovegin

Does one Tesco store constitute a 'trend' now?

Well, the purpose of a pilot is to roll it out to other stores at a later date, surely?

A pilot is not a trend.

@Comefromaway

A north west small town with a significant ex miners/council estate and elderly bungalows.

We have one bus per hour and the next nearest supermarket was well over an hours walk away.

Sainsbury’s is approx 30 mins walk away.

So I hardly think it’s an issue where most customers will be office workers.

Disabled people work in offices too.

15 mins isn’t far for able bodied people. But I couldn’t do it.

@FTEngineerM

What are they really trying to achieve with this?

They are trying out something they think people want.

Nah, they are trying something that will reduce their business overheads. They aren't in it to give people what they think they want, they are in it for profit, pure and simple.

Hell would freeze over before I'd use a store like this. I'm sick of technology, sick of living our lives through screens, can't be arsed to set an app up with payment on my phone just so I can buy a fecking bag of apples. What is so much easier about this than the traditional way of buying stuff?? Select bag of apples, swipe barcode, tap contactless card on machine, leave. It's just smart-arsedness for the sake of it because they can, not because the majority of people want it. I'm tired of life being over complicated by irritating changes I neither need nor want. And phones aren't impervious to buffering (blue circle of doom), shit signal, glitching - gaah! Changes go away!!! I don't ever ever want to shop through an app in store, it can piss right off.

I agree with your concerns.

Low-end smartphones aren't exceptionally expensive but they still cost as much as one person's food for a week. For someone living truly hand-to-mouth, immediately replacing a broken smartphone is either impossible or pushes them into debt. Smartphones also do require learning to use and therefore a certain level of mental ability.

For that matter a system that makes it almost impossible to know how much you'll be charged before you are charged it will also be very damaging to those on a low income. I'm sure we've all seen, and perhaps been, someone asking the checkout worker to put an item back because the shop costs more than the customer can afford. Or pointing out that a reduction or offer hadn't rung up as expected. All impossible with this kind of checkout-free system.

By contrast using cash or debit card costs the customer nothing and the mental skill required is lower.

One test store probably seems like no big deal. But if this is extended across a whole chain, and chances are they're the cheapest, it becomes yet another way that being poor or disabled is expensive. If it becomes common for all supermarkets it's a serious issue.

I think Parliament should in the near future seriously consider laws that businesses have to accept certain payment methods, in order to protect the ability of all people to access products and services.

I'll close by saying that of course Tesco will get "loads of positive responses from customers" - because the people who can't or won't use a checkout-free store won't be customers responding!

@Magicpaintbrush

Hell would freeze over before I'd use a store like this. I'm sick of technology, sick of living our lives through screens, can't be arsed to set an app up with payment on my phone just so I can buy a fecking bag of apples. What is so much easier about this than the traditional way of buying stuff?? Select bag of apples, swipe barcode, tap contactless card on machine, leave. It's just smart-arsedness for the sake of it because they can, not because the majority of people want it. I'm tired of life being over complicated by irritating changes I neither need nor want. And phones aren't impervious to buffering (blue circle of doom), shit signal, glitching - gaah! Changes go away!!! I don't ever ever want to shop through an app in store, it can piss right off.

With you

OP I think there's some hope

The smart motorways, driverless cars and drone deliveries are way behind what the plan was for 2020.

A bigger concern is the trend of city centre express-type branches of large stores that were pivoted from being a small store with a decent range of basics, to glorified sandwich shops, with the majority of shelf spaces given over to lunch based stuff and very little else. (Shelf of tea, coffee and biscuits also for local office population).
Local residents do not need/want to buy endless sandwiches/salads and microwave meals.

The plus side of covid lockdown and fewer office workers is that the ginormous sushi counters have quietly closed and we have a fresh fish counter again.

@AtLeastPretendToCare

Oh come on. This is by Chancery Lane tube, the vast majority of people who shop there are from nearby workplaces or are visiting such. It is hardly full of the elderly using rolators. And that is exactly why they start trialling with such stores - such customers are more likely to be tech savvy and willingness to use new innovations.

Now that doesn’t mean literally nobody will be inconvenienced sure but this is hardly the same as dropping it in the centre of a residential area.

Ha haha exactly this! There are no less than 4 Sainburys, an M&S food and a Little Waitrose literally within 5 minutes walk or a single bus stop. There's a sainsbury opposite it! There's another Tesco the other side of Chancery Lane

As it's Chancery Lane it will be 99% office workers through the week.

That's why they've chosen it as a trial location. Plenty of other options close by. Time poor, tech savvy people as their main customers.

There was only the big Sainsburys on the Holborn tube corner but 10 years ago when I was at law school there. Somehow the 'many council tenants and elderly' made do with that

@BungleandGeorge

Is it to reduce shop lifting? I would do my shopping elsewhere. If you’re in central London you’ve got more choice than the majority of the country who manage to do their shopping

I thought that about the shoplifting.

I think it’s great, it’ll be an age before it gets to me in the rural wilds of the East Mids sadly but I do everything I can on apps. I can start and defrost and charge my car from an app, I do all my banking on apps. I can’t remember the last time I used cash for anything in a shop, must be 3+ years. I think paying for a loaf of bread with £1 coin is odd these days. I don’t know anyone that does that, not even my parents and they are early 70’s, even they have applepay!
I love technology, I’m all for innovation and not living in the past.

This particular store is in an area with many council flats nearby. Elderly and disabled people used to shop there and will now need to walk at least 15 minutes to do their shopping.

I was pretty surprised when I opened the article and saw which shop it actually is! This description of High Holborn as a location is a bit baffling...