Sainsbury's expands mobile Scan and Go trial

The grocer has expanded the trial from the original three Sainsbury’s Local stores to include larger stores such as its hypermarket in Colney near St Albans. It is also considering enabling shoppers to pay for the goods on their mobile phone, rendering a visit to a till unnecessary.

When using the service, shoppers download an app on to their smartphones which enables them to use their phones as scanners. Once their basket or trolley of goods is scanned, they take their mobile to a dedicated self-checkout to pay.

Sainsbury’s chief information officer Rob Fraser said the idea is more likely to be rolled out across Sainsbury’s store estate than its fast track scanner service, in which Sainsbury’s provides shoppers with handheld scanners to take around store.

Fraser said the service is cheaper to provide than ‘relatively expensive’ hand held scanners, which are currently available in 40 stores, because shoppers use their own phones instead of Sainsbury’s hardware.

“Customers in those stores love it, but the economics didn’t quite justify a full roll out,” Fraser said. “The economics on mobile scan and go is much better, but we do need to make sure it all makes sense for customers.”

Sainsbury’s wants to see how supermarket customers respond to the service following its trial in three convenience stores.

The supermarket is also planning to roll out terminals with contactless payment technology embedded in them across its estate before Christmas, as its current payment terminals are due to be replaced. Fraser said: “The next generation of reader we’ll put out will be contactless. Then it will be up to us how hard we push that.” He added the grocer has no current plans to switch on the contactless payments software before Christmas.