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Welcome to a world without checkouts

No tills, no queues and no more cashiers — as Tesco opens its first ‘autonomous’ grab-and-go store in Holborn, is frictionless shopping the future of the high street, or just a new high-tech gimmick? Katie Strick goes on a smart supermarket sweep

@katie_strick

LAST time I walked out of a shop without paying, I had to make a red-faced trip back to Boots. This time — at a Tesco Express by Chancery Lane — I find myself being congratulated. “How did you find it?” asks an excited staff member standing by the barriers. “Keep walking and you’ll get the receipt in a couple of minutes,” another tells me encouragingly as I clutch my brown paper bag. Seconds after walking out, a Monzo notification tells me I’ve spent £15.52, quickly followed by the Tesco app announcing I’ve saved £1.89. I won’t be done for shoplifting after all.

Tesco GetGo, a 2,000 sq ft smart store, opened in High Holborn last week and it’s a brave new world. Customers must tap through a Tube-style barrier using a QR code on the Tesco app before filling a (free) paper bag with items and walking out. A receipt pops up on your phone within minutes (in my case, nine seconds) of exiting the store.

The magic behind the till-free tech lies in a series of cameras and weight-sensors provided by Israeli startup Trigo, which track what you buy — a similar technology to that used at the six cashier-free Amazon Go stores in the capital (the first opened in March).

Tesco chose Holborn for its GetGo trial for its busy central London location near tech-savvy office workers.

Rivals are hot on their heels. Morrisons is said to be testing a till-free concept at its Bradford head office, and Aldi has announced a checkout-free store in Greenwich. Sports chain Decathlon is already fitted with sensor-led self-checkouts and last year brought in a Scan & Go payment service that uses customers’ phones. Sainsbury’s launched a similar SmartShop service two years ago, whereby customers scan items as they walk around the store.

Is “frictionless” shopping the future? There’s a lot of hype on day two of Tesco’s GetGo experiment. “It’s amazing,” sing a chorus of curious mid-morning passers-by, mostly AirPod-wearing millennials with phones already glued to their hands.

The shopping experience is certainly seamless: no waiting in a queue, no “unexpected item in bagging area” alerts, no waiting for staff to check your ID. The store feels oddly peaceful without beeping checkouts, though it’s weird being watched by cameras in the ceiling (“The cameras view you as a stick man — or woman — as you’re walking in, so it’s all very data-privacy led,” project manager Luke Bayliss tries to reassure me later. Unlike CCTV cameras, these ones don’t see faces).

What about staff? Six or so of them are stationed around the GetGo store to help new customers, smiley in royal blue uniforms. One woman stands guarding the booze aisle, scanning customers’ faces for their age, but the rest of her colleagues seem to be twiddling their thumbs. Are they worried robots will eventually take their jobs?

The store feels peaceful without the checkouts — but it’s weird being watched by cameras in the ceiling

Francisca, an assistant standing outside the new GetGo, says she isn’t. In her last job, as a cashier at Tesco’s Baker Street store, she talked to customers more, but she doesn’t mind the change. “We still have lots to do,” she says, pointing to colleagues replenishing shelves. “Every time a customer comes in they need to sign up — they need help working out how to use the technology. In a way we need more staff. Nobody’s going to lose their job or anything. It’s new and different, but it’s not bad.” At Superdrug next door, checkout assistant Soulaeman Adjagbe, 27, isn’t so sure. He’s

been speaking to GetGo staff in his breaks and worries his own company will follow suit. He’s considering retraining in technology.

Bayliss insists jobs won’t be lost. “It’s still a service job — it’s just a different kind of service,” he adds, saying his GetGo store employs the same number of staff as traditional stores — “if not more because we’ve got additional people to help sell it”.

But will the store’s friendly welcome party last after launch week? At Amazon Fresh’s larger 2,500 sq ft store in Ealing Broadway, there are just four staff on the shop floor: one on the door, another guarding the alcohol aisle, one stacking shelves and another cleaning the floor by the takeaway coffee station. Still, it’s clear there’s a market for cashier-free convenience. “It’s just easy, isn’t it?” say Will and Anya, two 19-year-old LSE students who are back for their second visit in two days and are in and out of the store in 11 seconds with their snacks. Though it depends on who you speak to. Anna Cherriman, an 81-yearold grandmother who lives nearby, says the futuristic re-launch will stop her using her local Tesco Express altogether. “I’m not high-tech, I’m not even very good at using self-service checkouts — I don’t even know what an app is.”

And there are other causes of friction in this “frictionless” new world. Tesco’s app crashed for 24 hours this weekend - were hackers targeting the new store? Meanwhile some customers complain that the billing technology isn’t 100 per cent accurate. “I once got a coffee and the system didn’t recognise it,” admits Josh, 33, a software engineer who buys his lunch at Amazon’s Ealing outpost most days. Others say they’re regularly overcharged. “One thing I would say is check your bill,” warns Julie*, a 65-yearold retiree who lives nearby.

Later, I remember Julie’s warning, and realise I hadn’t received a bill from the Amazon Fresh — have I (accidentally) robbed Jeff Bezos? My £25 receipt comes through two hours and 18 minutes after I left the store, by which time I’ve forgotten what I bought anyway.

Bayliss assures me there are no plans to make every Tesco store till-free. “It’s a specific type of customer who wants that quick and easy journey — others want the checkouts and conversation, which is absolutely fine.”

Is it just a gimmick to fill the gap before robot deliveries become a reality? According to this year’s Waitrose food and drink report, the number of people buying food in-store on a daily basis has doubled in a year — with working-from-home on the rise, that supermarket trip has become a daily ritual for many of those workers in need of an excuse to leave the house. If that’s the case, a more seamless experience could be a good thing for the high street, Francisca tells me. “Customers walk out happier — I’m just happy to see customers happy.” Every little helps.

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2021-10-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

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