Yahoo Finance Customers love our self-checkouts, insists Sainsbury’s boss
The boss of Sainsbury’s has insisted customers like self-checkout tills, even as other supermarkets ditch them because of a backlash.
Simon Roberts insisted that Sainsbury’s shoppers “like the speedy checkout” offered by self-serve tills.
His commitment to the technology comes even as rivals scrap the devices. Northern grocer Booths replaced self-checkout machines with human cashiers at all but two of its 27 sites last year, after a survey of its customers found they were difficult to use.
In the US, Walmart and Costco have rolled back the use of self checkouts.
Mr Roberts said: “If you visit one of our supermarkets, what you’ll see is definitely more self checkouts than a number of years ago, because actually a lot of customers like the speedy checkout.”
However, he added the supermarket would not give up on having cashiers in shops.
“Over the last year, where we’ve put more self checkouts in, we’re always making sure that the traditional kind of belted checkout is there.”
Last year, Tesco’s chief executive Ken Murphy was forced to defend its self-checkouts after a petition calling for their rollout to be halted gained thousands of signatures.
Concerns have also been raised that self-checkouts are aiding shoplifters, amid a wave of retail crime since the pandemic.
Mr Roberts said Sainsbury’s was “making sure we’re protecting ourselves from any theft”.
It comes as Sainsbury’s, which also owns Argos, said on Thursday it expects to make a profit of more than £1bn this year as more customers sign-up to its Nectar card scheme and as inflation eases.
It reported a 1.6pc rise in underlying pre-tax profits to £701m for the 12 months to March 2. Profits edged higher as strong food sales offset a weaker performance in general merchandise.
On a statutory basis, pre-tax profits slumped 15.3pc to £277m as it restructured its financial services arm. Sainsbury’s Bank sold its mortgage portfolio to Co-op Bank last August and the supermarket said in January it was looking to offload its entire banking division.
Sainsbury’s shares fell by more than 2pc on Thursday morning.
Mr Roberts claimed the supermarket was winning customers from both discounters and more expensive supermarkets.
He said: “We’re the only full choice grocer taking share from both the limited choice supermarkets… and what I would call the more expensive grocery retailers.”
Mr Roberts added the supermarket was in discussions with its suppliers over how to mitigate the effects of recent poor weather on crops such as potatoes.
He said: “We’ve already been in lots of discussions to make sure we can find a way through using the crop that’s available in the best way, looking at different parts of the UK that have been less impacted so we can protect supply.
“It’s not just potatoes, it’s onions, and other other crops as well. So we’re all over this and I think we’re pretty confident that we will, one, do a really good job supporting our farmers and, two, protect availability without causing any impact on customers.”
