Retail staff wary of ‘Scan & Go’ theft
Countdown says contactless shopping has proven popular with customers, but a supermarket worker in one busy Auckland store using the technology says it is encouraging shoplifting.
The supermarket chain launched its contactless shopping feature ‘‘Scan & Go’’ two years ago and has slowly rolled it out to 20 stores.
This year, five more stores have started allowing the contactless shopping method.
Scan & Go works by allowing a shopper to scan the barcode of each item through the Countdown app and pack the goods into a shopping bag as they move around the store. At the end, a QR code is generated that can then be scanned at a dedicated unmanned checkout, prompting an electronic payment to be made.
Countdown says contactless shopping has picked up in popularity with shoppers this year after they got used to using it during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.
Mark Wolfenden, the director of the company’s technology arm, director of Countdown’s technology arm, CountdownX
CountdownX, said use of contactless shopping was forecast to grow further in coming years as consumers sought more convenience and faster shopping experiences.
A supermarket assistant at Countdown Ponsonby in Auckland told Stuff that staff in the store referred to the method as ‘‘Scam & Go’’ because they felt it
enabled frequent theft, with shoppers regularly paying for a lot less than they put in their bags.
Wolfenden said the supermarket had not experienced high losses as a result of Scan & Go.
‘‘It is not something we see huge challenges around, but it is definitely higher risk.’’
He said internal data showed customers were buying more through Scan & Go than expected.
‘‘[People are] actually doing whole trolley shops and packing as they go – it is not necessarily [being used for] just picking up a couple of items.’’
Countdown was gathering data on how it was being used in stores and would use those findings to make a decision on whether it would be rolled out to the chain’s network of 193 stores, he said.
Scan & Go was loosely inspired by Amazon Go stores in the United States that offered a similar contactless shopping experience, he said.
‘‘It is not something we see huge challenges around, but it is definitely higher risk.’’ Mark Wolfenden