Dive Brief:
- While scan-and-go technology has had a rocky relationship with grocers, it’s proving to be a hit at Sam’s Club’s membership stores. The club retailer found that 1 in 3 of its members use the capability on a regular basis, according to a recent company blog post.
- Over the past three years, the club retailer has seen a 50% uptick in Scan & Go adoption as it continues to improve the digital tool’s capabilities.
- Sam’s Club is also rolling out new receipt verification technology that will be available chain-wide by the end of this year.
Dive Insight:
Scan-and-go has been a tricky subject for grocers as industry experts boast about the technology’s convenience, but worry about the risk of shrink. When Wegmans ended its use of its scan-and-go shopping app due to losses in September 2022, the grocer’s customers took to social media to express their disappointment.
It appears the technology is better suited to a shopping experience where customers select fewer, larger items. Sam’s Club is leaning into scan-and-go after its usage “reached record highs last year,” according to the blog post.
Available to shoppers through the club’s mobile app, Sam’s Club customers are able to select items, complete payment and skip the checkout line. In recent years, the club retailer has taken customer feedback to improve the app and has incorporated upgrades like EBT SNAP acceptance, multi-transaction capabilities, the ability to order fuel or cafe items and personalized suggestions.
As Sam’s Club continues to find ways to improve the wait at checkout lines as well as at the stores’ exits, the club retailer is also rolling out its new receipt verification technology after a successful 10-location pilot.
The “exit technology” uses computer vision, images of shopping cart images captured by cameras and AI to verify receipts and payments. The new technology eliminates a Sam’s Club staff member having to check shoppers’ receipts as they leave the store. The club retailer expects to implement the exit technology chainwide by the end of this year.
