The following article, which appeared in the June 2005 issue of Extended Retail Solutions magazine, features a discussion of trends and projections for self-checkout technology by Pete Catoe, Founder and President of ECRS. Of particular interest is Catoe's vision of self-checkout's emergence within non-traditional retail markets, as well as ECRS's software-centric approach, which allows retailers to control and enhance their self-checkout functionality.

Self-Service Pays Off

Simply put, self-checkout allows the express shopper to move quickly through a transaction while at the same time helping to decrease traffic at the traditional POS lanes. As such, the retailer can better facilitate throughput with those customers who need assistance on larger or more complex transactions.

Customer-driven

Our research shows that self-checkout works best with express transactions. Findings show that the average self-checkout transaction, though smaller, is in most cases more profitable, and for these reasons we continue to place our development on the express side of the equation.

With this in mind, it is important to note that it is not technology that is the driving force behind self-checkout: consumers are. Consumers are surrounded daily by modern self-service devices that enhance their lives - devices such as ATMs, airline check-in kiosks and pay-at-the-pump fuel stations. The majority of consumers are embracing self-service technology because of the enhanced convenience and speed these products provide. Retail self-checkout may have started under the initiative of the retailer, but is now becoming more demand-driven because a growing number of consumers simply prefer the convenience and control afforded by self-service.

A key from the retail perspective is that self-checkout has proven to be a powerful productivity tool. Just as with heavy construction equipment, trained operators can produce highly leveraged results. This increase in productivity can free up store personnel who were previously locked behind their POS stations to more readily assist customers and drive business. On the other hand, retailers who have approached self-checkout as if they were ATMs have not experienced the full effectiveness of the tool.

Jumping Hurdles

In software development, you're constantly faced with solving transaction challenges, both practical and not so practical. ECRS has been very successful in addressing all the different transaction types thus far. Proof-of-age, produce, and extremely heavy/light items have all been addressed with our standard system. Moving forward, we envisage self-checkout expanding beyond the grocery and warehouse store formats and into the specialty arena. We feel strongly that nearly all retail formats will soon host self-checkout, and we plan to be at the forefront of this effort. It will be interesting to discover and solve new transaction challenges as they are encountered in these new uncharted markets.

As the self-checkout market matures, we feel the focus will increasingly fall on the software application. Our offering is software-centric, which allows the retailer to choose the components that best fit their current and future hardware needs. We also feel Linux will become the de facto standard on all self-checkout platforms. Retailers perceive Linux to be the most stable, cost-effective and secure OS for embedded solutions such as self-checkout. We at ECRS believe this perception has merit, and are really the first to market with the Linux option.

We also feel the software application itself, and the ability for the retailer to mold its functionality for competitive differentiation, will be highly important to retailers as they adopt self-checkout. Our Java plug-in technology allows the retailer to differentiate their offering while simultaneously staying on our standard source upgrade path.

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