by A balmy Thursday afternoon in Wimbledon might not seem like the perfect time to buy woolen trousers and fluffy jumpers. However, Uniqlo had a few takers.
Olivia, a 23-year-old Londoner, was stocking up on a few cardigans for the autumn season so she was “prepared” for the colder weather.
At Uniqlo, there are questions not only about when customers will start buying for each season but how. The Japanese fast fashion brand is installing self-service check-out points throughout its stores, mimicking the controversial technology adopted in supermarkets.
However, unlike supermarkets, customers do not need to scan a barcode. Simply dump items into the self-checkout’s built-in bucket and the futuristic technology automatically registers them. Uniqlo claims the system can cut transaction times in half.
It is not the only fashion retailer to imitate the supermarkets. Across the high street, self-checkout stations are being installed at retail stores. Marks & Spencer, Primark and Zara – some of the earliest adopters – are increasing their use of the technology, while others such as JD Sports are starting to introduce self-checkout.
The adoption comes despite skepticism about the emerging technology in the supermarket sector, which was the first to support these avenues. Asda and Morrisons have stopped using the technology in recent months.
Booths, Waitrose’s northern rival, phased them out completely last year, saying: “Colleagues serving customers provide a better customer experience.” In the US, retailers including Target have also started removing the checks due to shopping concerns.
Between the end of 2020 and 2023, the number of self-checkouts in UK stores went from 65,000 to almost 90,000, according to figures from RBR Data Services, a division of Datos Insights. Fashion retailers, rather than supermarkets, have driven much of this growth.
“It’s more in demand from our shoppers,” says Paul Orange of JD Sports. After a trial at its store in Bluewater, Kent, the company has now installed the technology in three of its sites. “For us, it’s as much about our customers being comfortable with self-checkout as it is about us embracing the technology,” says Orange.
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JD Sports is currently monitoring customer response before deciding to roll out the technology further.
At M&S, bosses have announced plans to install self-checkout kiosks at dozens more stores to “offer customers new ways to pay for shopping at M&S faster, easier and more convenient”.
However, perhaps mindful of a potential backlash, the company said customers would still have the option of paying for their tills with staff.
Among retail experts, there is some skepticism. Companies may say their shoppers want choice but experts believe the real reason for installing self-checkouts is to cut costs.
“It’s about labor costs,” says Shore Capital analyst Clive Black. “In my opinion, that’s the driving factor.”
Many retail workers are on the minimum wage, which saw its biggest ever pay rise in April, rising from £10.42 to £11.44 an hour. Another significant increase is expected to be announced in the autumn.
“The cost of labour, particularly in the UK, has risen dramatically over the last five years so there is a real incentive to look at how many people you employ and where they are in the stores,” says Black.
Following the pandemic, many lower-wage industries, including retail and hospitality, have struggled to recruit, amid record levels of unemployment and an exodus of EU workers during Covid .
In its annual report, Primark said self-checkout technology can help “relieve the recruitment pressures facing the business in a tight labor market”.
The terminals “free up colleagues to focus on where they are most needed – for example, restocking the shop floor, helping customers or staffing fitting rooms”.
However, adopting a self-service tile can have its own challenges. Retail crime rates are at a 20-year high and theft may be more difficult to monitor when workers are moved from tills.
Survey data suggests that shoppers are as much as 21 times more likely to find items over a machine than a member of staff. A report from Ipsos earlier this month [August] revealed that one in eight adults are allowed to put items through as cheaper alternatives when using self-service tills. It’s a scam called the “banana trick”.
In supermarkets, such scams may not cause huge losses. But the focus could be on items of much higher value in retail.
Many fashion retailers are investing in high-tech stations that use radio frequency identification (RFID) chips embedded in price tags to ensure customers aren’t rejecting items as cheaper alternatives.
The self-service machines automatically read these chips when customers insert them into the station. In theory, this should eliminate any risk of people pulling the “banana trick”.
But no system is perfect. Bloomberg claimed last year that Zara was forced to slightly delay its rollout of the system after learning that the chips were easy to identify and remove. Its owner Inditex downplayed any questions, saying the rollout was “planning without any significant incidents”.
Christopher Andrews, an associate professor at Drew University who has written about supermarket self-checkouts, says people will always be central to any system meant to deter theft.
“An RFID scanner on a piece of clothing will only be effective if there is some way to prevent the customer from walking out of the store after they set off the security alarms,” he says.
Tiling workers may have other benefits besides deterring scammers and thieves.
James Daunt, who runs Waterstones, says his business “depends entirely on our booksellers and the quality of service they give to our bookshops”.
He says: “They will never be replaced by machines, whether it’s self-service check-out or information terminals.”
Campaigners say it is vital that customers can still find shop assistants to help them, especially for older shoppers.
“They like to have a friendly face there for the shopping experience,” says Dennis Reed, of the seniors group Silver Voices. “If the whole thing is dehumanised, why would people go into shops? They can also order things online.”
It’s not just the elderly who are lukewarm at best when it comes to self-examination.
Back in Wimbledon, west London, Gen Z Olivia is among those queuing to be served by a shop assistant. Most of the high-tech stations are still empty. One is surrounded by a cluster of middle-aged women looking anxiously at a confession. “Maybe it’s not the system I want yet,” Olivia shrugged.
