Stop & Shop airs new self-serve idea: Check-out-as-you-go hand scanners

BRAINTREE, Mass. Ahold USA’s Stop & Shop supermarket division is giving customers in a few of its stores a new way to take the concept of self-service beyond checking and bagging their own groceries at the upfront registers. The 360-store food and pharmacy chain has launched a new test that provides customers with their own hand-held scanning devices when they enter the store – devices which they can use to scan their purchases as they take them off the shelf and put them in their baskets.

The company has introduced the self-service scanners at a few of its stores in Connecticut, according to a report from The Hartford Courant. The devices update purchase totals as customers scan each product in, and automatically deduct for discounts and specials, some of which are only available to shoppers who use the hand-held scanners.

The devices, called Scan It!, are manufactured by Modiv Media Inc. The device maker asserts that the portable scanners can cut average shopping trip times by 12 minutes, but may also trigger more follow-up visits, the Courant reports.

Modiv sells the systems for about $100,000 each, according to the report, and generates revenues by selling manufacturers advertising that appears on the portable screens.Roughly one of every 10 customers in the test stores is choosing to use the scanner, according to the newspaper.

Stop & Shop officials would assert the use of the new self-checkout system is in line with a tradition of innovation at the company, the flagship of Dutch-based Ahold’s supermarket and combo store operation in the U.S.

“From self-service markets to the introduction of the region’s first superstore, Stop & Shop has always been an industry pioneer,” said Carl Schlicker, president and CEO of Ahold’s Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover unit.