Booths removes almost all self-service checkouts and puts staff back behind tills as experts say move will cut shoplifting: ‘We listen to our customers – they want to speak to a real human’

A supermarket chain has become the first in Britain to return to full staff checkouts after scrapping most self-service operations after its boss said: “We like talking to people.”

Booths – which has 27 stores in the north across Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire and Cheshire – found the machines to be “slow, unreliable and impersonal” and decided that “instead of artificial intelligence, we are moving towards actual intelligence”.

Staff at the upscale company, called Northern Waitrose, added they wanted to make sure customers were served by people with “high levels of warm, personal care”.

The move by Booth Company, founded in 1847, has sparked much debate about the benefits of self-checkout as retailers continue to battle an epidemic of shoplifting.

The British Independent Retailers Association said there could be a “reality check with the current level of retail theft and self-service services becoming an expensive risk”.

All but two Booths stores will bring staff back to work – with the exceptions being in the Lake District of Keswick and Windermere which can get very busy at times.

* Have you had a bad experience with self checkout? Please send an email to: tips@dailymail.com *

Nigel Murray, Managing Director of Booths, said: BBC Radio Lancashire Today: “Our customers have told us this over time, that the self-scanning machines we have in our stores can be slow, they can be unreliable, and they’re just plain impersonal.”

“We stock a lot of bulk items – fruit, vegetables, baked goods – and once you do a self-check with those items, you have to get a visual check on them, and some customers don’t know what’s different one apple versus another for example.

There is “all kinds of interest in this,” he said, and once someone puts alcohol in their basket, an employee has to come in and do an age check.

Mr Murray continued: “We are a company that prides itself on high standards and high levels of warm personal care.

“We love talking to people and we’re really proud that we’re very much moving to a place where our customers are served by people, by humans, so instead of artificial intelligence, we’re moving toward actual intelligence.”

The program also heard from a customer called Sue from Leyland in the county, who said: “I think shopping is boring and mundane, and I think if the staff there talk to you, it makes it even better.”

The British Independent Retailers Association described the move as a “very interesting development”.

Its chief executive, Andrew Goodacre, told MailOnline today: ‘Independent retailers will never use self-service tools, preferring instead to provide personal service at the locker.’

“Furthermore, independent retailers view checkout as an additional selling opportunity and Boots now appears to be following suit.

“There may also be a reality check with the current level of retail theft and self-service becoming an expensive risk.”

The British Retail Consortium’s 2023 Crime Survey estimated annual retail theft in Britain at £953 million, despite retailers spending more than £700 million on fighting crime.

This means the total cost of retail crime was £1.76bn for the year ending April.

It also found that incidents of violence and abuse towards retail colleagues almost doubled from pre-pandemic levels to 867 incidents per day in 2021/22.

A separate survey of the organization’s members in 2023 found that levels of shoplifting in ten major UK cities rose by an average of 27 per cent.

Industry sources said they had not heard any supermarkets or other retailers proposing to do away with self-checkouts.

MailOnline contacted all major UK supermarkets to inquire about their position, and only Waitrose responded with confirmation that they would not follow suit.

A spokeswoman for Waitrose, which has implemented self-checkout since 2011, said: “Our customers value choice; some want fast self-checkout, while others prefer personal service.

“Unlike some retailers, all of our branches continue to have staff screening staff, which is really important for our customers.”

But Robert Downes, development director at the Manchester Federation of Small Businesses, tweeted: “Well done to Booths supermarkets for abolishing the hated self-checkout system.”

“A welcome return to staff check-ins and proper customer service – not to mention a deterrent to accidental shoplifting.” Now let’s see if others follow suit?

He added: “Levels of shoplifting could mean the end of self-checkouts. Any savings they save in staff costs are certainly being eroded by theft – which honest people pay for through higher prices.

Harry Rose, editor of What? The magazine tweeted: “The main benefit is saving time – even with errors. Without it, you’ll be stuck behind people doing their weekly shopping when all you buy is milk. And in convenience stores without it, you’ll often have queues snaking around the store.”

He added: “Aldi is good now – in the stores where they introduced self-checkout, they still have two or three checkouts open too. I can’t remember there being any glitches in the technology.”

Mr Rose also said: “The main drawback is the packaging areas judge products based on weight but can’t handle lighter items, so you know you’ll inevitably have to come into contact with a human when you try to buy paracetamol for example.” Or basil.

A Booths spokesperson said it made the decision as a model where “customer service colleagues” provide the best user experience.

They said shoppers overwhelmingly supported the move, with feedback showing they preferred a “more personalized service”.

A Booths spokesperson said: “We believe that colleagues serving customers provide a better customer experience and have therefore taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores.”

“We based this not only on what we felt was the right thing to do, but also on receiving feedback from our customers, who prefer a more personalized service.”

Since 1847, Booth’s founding philosophy has been “to sell the best goods available, in attractive stores, staffed by first-class assistants.”

Delighting customers with our warm, northern welcome is part of our DNA and we continue to invest in our people to ensure we remain true to this ethos.

“We will maintain self-checkout operations at two of our stores in the Lake District in order to meet the needs of our customers during periods of high traffic.”

This represents a shift away from the trend towards self-checkout amid warnings last month that the popularity of self-checkout machines in supermarkets was causing a decline in store vacancies.

The total number of exit-related vacancies fell from 2,748 last October to 2,020 this month, according to job search engine Adzuna.

She added that checkout roles previously accounted for less than 58 per cent of supermarket jobs in October 2016, while last month they accounted for just 15 per cent.

In the same period, the number of self-checkout machines in supermarkets has increased from 53,000 to about 80,000 in the past five years, according to analytics platform RBR Data Services.

These figures will raise concerns among job seekers in the run-up to Christmas, who often rely on supermarkets hiring extra staff to deal with festive shoppers.

*Did you have a bad experience with self-checkout? Please send an email to: tips@dailymail.com *