PRICE CHOPPER TO INSTALL SELF-SCANNERS IN STORES

DENISE ZIMMERMAN

HOUSTON -- Price Chopper Supermarkets, Schenectady, N.Y., will install customer self-scanning systems in at least two new stores opening this year.

The 81-store chain, which has been using the self-service checkout stations at its Clifton Park, N.Y., store more than a year, will introduce the system to a second store in 60 to 90 days, said Tom Nowak, vice president of management information systems.

The self-checkout stations will then be installed at other new store locations as deemed appropriate, based on shopper demographics and store size, he added.

The self-service checkout lanes are equipped with touch-screen computer monitors that guide shoppers through the scanning, bagging and payment process. At Price Chopper, the stations are integrated with express lanes and used by 30% of shoppers, Nowak said during a presentation here last month at the MarkeTechnics conference sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute, Washington.

Price Chopper's plans to upgrade point-of-sale systems chainwide also call for replacing the POS software driving both conventional and self-checkout lanes. The POS software, currently being refined in a Price Chopper lab environment, was designed for the retailer by Optimal Robotics, Plattsburgh, N.Y., the same company providing the self-service checkout lanes.

"We made the decision to use their software for our total point-of-sale system -- that's been a change in our strategy in the last several months," Nowak told SN.

The new software operates on a personal-computer based POS

system and a Novell network and will be installed first at new stores and remodels, and eventually, existing stores will be retrofitted.

Front-end hardware for the chain likely will be sourced from multiple vendors, mixing and matching peripherals, Nowak said.

"Why a PC-based point of sale?" Nowak said during a presentation at the MarkeTechnics show here last month. "Because it means a lower maintenance cost, lower hardware costs. We'll get some good competitive bidding going there."

Nowak said the chain's decision to outfit new stores with customer self-scanning stations is based on good results at the test store. Although he declined to specify how many new stores would be equipped with the units, at least two new stores will be outfitted this year.

One store will feature a configuration similar to that in the Clifton Park store, which has four self-scanning lanes that share two automated payment devices. Self-scanning transactions are monitored by a cashier operator assigned to a conventional checkout lane located nearby.

Nowak declined to specify the store location to be equipped with self-scanning checkouts, but did indicate its demographic profile will likely mirror the suburban, professional market of the Clifton Park test site.

Price Chopper has maintained the success of the self-scanning program lies in its approach: to use the system to enhance customer service, especially for "express" customers purchasing only a few items.

"These are the [customers] who have the most difficult time standing in line. It's important to increase the number of [checkout] options for customers," he said.

For Price Chopper, customer self-scanning delivers productivity gains. "Small orders are the least productive orders, and whatever you can funnel through self-service, the better," Nowak said.