# UK supermarket Booths to scrap most self-service tills
Author: Pal sinha, Barnali
Author URL: https://startupobserver.com/author/pal-sinha-barnali/
Published: 2023-11-10
Category: Business
Category URL: https://startupobserver.com/category/business/
Meta Title: UK supermarket Booths to scrap self-service tills
Meta Description: Booths, an upmarket UK supermarket chain, is axing self-service tills due to customer feedback. Opting for staffed checkouts for better customer experience.
URL: https://startupobserver.com/uk-supermarket-booths-to-scrap-most-self-service-tills/

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LONDON (Reuters) – Northern England supermarket chain Booths is to axe almost all of the self-service tills in its stores, saying the decision was in response to feedback from [customers.](https://startupobserver.com/air-europa-says-customer-data-may-have-been-compromised-in-october-breach/)

The shift is the first by a UK grocer of a significant size, bucking a trend that has seen all of the major players, including market leader Tesco and No. 2 Sainsbury’s, open thousands of [self](https://startupobserver.com/self-driving-truck-company-einride-expands-into-norway/)-checkouts and dramatically reduce the amount of staffed checkouts.

Booths, an upmarket [supermarket](https://startupobserver.com/uk-supermarket-asda-says-2023-underlying-profit-up-24/) chain, said it believed staff serving customers delivered a better customer experience and had therefore taken the decision to remove self-checkouts from all but two of its 28 stores.

Nigel Murray, managing director of Booths, told BBC Radio Lancashire that customers had told the firm that its self-scan machines can be slow and were unreliable and impersonal.

“We like to talk to people and we’re really proud that we’re moving largely to a place where our customers are served by people, by human beings, so rather than artificial intelligence, we’re going for actual intelligence,” he said.

[Tesco,](https://startupobserver.com/tesco-reported-to-competition-watchdog-by-consumer-group-over-pricing-concerns/) which has over 27% share of the UK grocery market, introduced self-service checkouts more than two decades ago.

Over the last year it has added trolley self-checkouts to existing basket self-checkout areas to enable customers to process bigger purchases.

Tesco CEO Ken Murphy told investors at its last annual general meeting that self- [service](https://startupobserver.com/servicemax-introduces-core-22-r4-a-connected-system-of-action-automation-and-collaboration-for-field-service-professionals/) tills had over time proved a “very popular” method of payment for [customers.](https://startupobserver.com/air-europa-says-customer-data-may-have-been-compromised-in-october-breach/)

“This is not by the way designed to replace people, quite the opposite … There is always in every shop a cash-manned checkout alternative, but we genuinely believe that at the end of the day it provides a better customer experience.”

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Paul Simao)


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