Ahold Delhaize USA to bring frictionless checkout to more stores

Ahold Delhaize USA plans to expand SCAN IT! Mobile frictionless checkout to about 30 stores by the end of this year.

The company’s Retail Business Services (RBS) arm said Thursday that the proprietary solution, which customers use by downloading their supermarket banner’s SCAN IT! Android or iOS app, is currently offered at select Stop & Shop stores and Giant Food Stores’ Giant Heirloom Market locations.

With SCAN IT! Mobile, customers scan product barcodes with their smartphone as they shop and put the items in their cart or bag. The app keeps a running tally of the groceries scanned. When done shopping, customers exit the store via a designated checkout lane, see a “payment approved” message appear while walking through and are charged for purchases.

SCAN IT! Mobile incorporates a digital wallet that customers set up beforehand with their preferred payment method. Besides credit or debit cards, shoppers can pay via such platforms as PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay and Google Pay, which are integrated into the wallet.

Customers, too, can opt to use handheld scanners available at the front of the store for ringing up groceries while shopping. After scanning their items, shoppers then transfer the session to the SCAN IT! Mobile app on their smartphone and then proceed with payment by exiting the store through the designated checkout lane.

Related:Stop & Shop opens refreshed stores on Long Island

The SCAN IT! Mobile frictionless checkout tool was developed in the RBS innovation lab and tech hub in Quincy, Mass.

“At Retail Business Services, we’re focused on creating the next generation of grocery retail. A key part of this is developing new technologies that support consumers’ changing preferences for how they want to shop,” Paul Scorza, chief information officer and executive vice president of IT at RBS, said in a statement. “For consumers who want to skip the checkout line and pay with their smartphones, we’re excited to see the use of our in-store frictionless solution continue to grow. At the same time, we continue to evaluate ways to open up new possibilities for the future.”

SCAN IT! Mobile is currently available at two Giant Heirloom Market stores in Philadelphia.

Carlisle, Pa.-based Giant now offers SCAN IT! Mobile at its two Giant Heirloom Market urban-format stores in Philadelphia’s University City and Graduate Hospital neighborhoods. Two more Heirloom Markets are slated to open in the city’s Northern Liberties and Queens Villages sections by the year’s end.

Plans call for the frictionless checkout technology to be installed soon at five Giant supermarkets in Pennsylvania — 3301 Trindle Rd. in Camp Hill, 2300 Linglestown Rd. in Harrisburg, 1605 Lititz Pike in Lancaster, 450 East Main St. in Middletown and 315 York Rd. in Willow Grove — and the service to become available to customers by the end of the year, according to RBS.

Related:Giant debuts second Heirloom Market in Philadelphia

“We are continuously looking at how, when and where our customers want to shop, and introducing

frictionless checkout brings convenience and technology together to meet the needs of our busy customers,” commented John Ponnett, senior vice president of retail operations at Giant Food Stores. “We’ve offered handheld scanning devices for several years, and as customer usage continues to increase, the next step was to align that offering with payment options, saving our customers even more time.”

Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop currently provides SCAN IT! Mobile frictionless checkout at 22 stores, including some of its recently remodeled supermarkets in the Hartford, Conn., and Long Island, N.Y., markets and several stores in Massachusetts.

Overall, Ahold Delhaize USA operates nearly 2,000 retail food stores on the East Coast under the Stop & Shop, Giant/Martin’s, Giant Food, Hannaford and Food Lion banners, as well as online grocer Peapod.