In a bid to make the queue at the cashier a thing of the past, a Japanese convenience store will test a checkout system that scans shopping baskets instantly.
The trial-run will take place at a FamilyMart convenience store in Tokyo for a month from January 30, using special tags on 500 kinds of goods and electronic money, trading house Itochu said Wednesday.
If a shopper places the basket on the checkout counter, the system scans the prices in one second without the sales clerk having to scan each item.
Including the time for procedures such as putting the goods in a bag, “it takes less than 10 seconds to leave the counter,” said Itochu spokesman Yasuhiko Takahashi said.
The article’s way too short — leaves out a lot of detail. Still, pretty interesting that prototyping systems like this are moving along.
I’m shocked that Wal-Mart isn’t doing this yet.
Even if this makes it to the US, don’t expect to see shorter checkout lines. The retailers and supermarkets will just balance the load by putting less cashiers on duty. Same thing that happened when scanners started to arrive here.
well, you could already rip off a store by mucking with the bar code, every new layer of “security” seems to make it easier to steal stuff. Good old shoplifting will soon be considered a best case senario by shopping center security experts. The experts profiting from the new method will, I’m sure, tell us that it’s flawless.
Sounds like the self checkout they already have at Ralphs Supermarkets and Home Depot. I’d prefer a system where you can swipe a credit card through a machine once, take what you want, and walk out of the store. now that’s convenience.
I thought you hated RFID?
The main reason that I won’t go to Home Depot (aside from utterly useless and ignorant staff): they installed those damn self-checkout machines. Now they have 4 self-checkout registers open, and one (or if reaaaalllly busy two) regular registers. The regular registers have a line of 10 people behind them, because the self-checkout won’t work for most of the items… try self-scanning a 4×8 piece of plywood without a scanner gun. Or you are stuck behind someone that has no clue which way to point a barcode so it can be read.
So waits are longer, service is worse than the utterly terrible service they had before, you get to do the work yourself and get paid nothing for the effort. Geeee… what’s next.. pay for the priviledge of walking into the store?
I drive the extra 1/2 mile to OSH just to avoid the damn self-checkout (and also so I can ask a question to someone that has a clue how to install a faucet… OSH has a tendency to hire retired people that have old fashioned work ethics and real hardware practical knowledge, instead of the blank stare punks that Home Depot hires)
The self checkouts at the markets I shop are a nightmare. It’s a combination of user error, faulty database and produce weighing operations. I never get in a self check if there’s anyone in front of me. Most of the time a clerk has to come over and solve a problem. I assume that this Japanese system uses smart tags and little customer input is necessary.