Bielefeld, October 2021
Thefirst self-service store—the precursor to today’s widespread supermarkets—opened in Germany nearly 100 years ago. Today, supermarkets and discount stores shape the landscape of the German food retail industry, and the principle of self-service also dominates other sectors. In many cases, customers now only interact with store staff at the checkout. Here, too, much has changed in recent years. Checkout counters are now state-of-the-art, efficient computer systems, and cash payments are increasingly being replaced by cashless methods.
“No matter how much our shopping habits have changed in recent decades and will continue to change in the future, the payment process—and thus the point-of-sale system—will remain a constant in our lives.”
Tarek Hussain
Sales Manager for POS Solutions at ANKER
“No matter how much our shopping habits have changed in recent decades and will continue to change in the future, the payment process—and thus the POS system—will remain a constant in our lives,” emphasizes Tarek Hussain, Sales Manager for POS Solutions at Anker GmbH. “In this context, self-service payment will continue to gain importance and, in the long term, will establish itself as beneficial for all parties involved.”
Even today, more and more large retailers are using self-checkout registers—at least as a supplement to traditional POS systems—where customers scan their purchases themselves and preferably pay cashless. As a long-established German company, ANKER GmbH develops and distributes hardware for the checkout counter. ANKER is present in the stores of major grocery chains ANKER among small and medium-sized retailers ANKER a wide range of industries.
“The concept of self-checkout is still primarily a topic of discussion among large chain stores,” notes Hussain. “However, companies with two- to three-digit numbers of stores are increasingly realizing that there are good reasons not only to keep up with the times on the sales floor but also to modernize their checkout areas.”
Building on its many years of experience in the technology sector, ANKER GmbH is responding to this foreseeable trend. With the acquisition of the Berlin-based software company LocaFox, ANKER is ANKER expanding its portfolio and once again positioning itself as a comprehensive POS system provider offering hardware, software, integration, and related services.
Until now, a key reason for market-leading retailers’ decision to invest in self-checkout systems has been the associated potential for savings in labor costs. Meanwhile, it has also become apparent that the growing shortage of qualified checkout staff is motivating even small and medium-sized retailers to develop new strategies.
“The use of self-checkout systems offers retailers of all sizes the opportunity to implement modern customer service strategies,” explains Hussain. “They can specifically expand customer service expertise on the sales floor without increasing staffing requirements or costs. At the same time, self-checkout systems are proving to be an appropriate response to the growing labor shortage in the retail sector.”
With growing interest and continuous technological advancements, self-checkout kiosks are becoming increasingly attractive from both a technical and economic perspective. Mass-market-friendly prices and hardware and software increasingly designed for usability and customer experience have made self-checkout a customer-oriented alternative that can hold its own strategically.
"In the long term, self-checkout will become the norm in more and more stores."
Tarek Hussain
Sales Manager for POS Solutions at ANKER
By expanding its hardware lineup to include a diverse range of consulting services and comprehensive project management, ANKER is positioning itself as a full-service provider. With this move, the long-established Bielefeld-based company aims to make the capabilities of modern, user-oriented self-checkout solutions accessible to a broader customer base. The focus here is on retailers of all sizes, beyond the dominant large chain stores.
ANKER cloud-based self-checkout systems, ANKER Android, Windows, or Linux, can be used as standalone solutions or integrated into existing ERP systems.
“In the long term, self-checkout will become the norm in more and more stores,” predicts Hussain. “For customers, factors such as convenience and time savings are what matter most. For small and medium-sized retailers, our full-service offering provides not only cost certainty but also a convenient and reliable way to master a technology that further puts the customer at the center, builds customer loyalty, and ultimately generates a profit that is also economically measurable.”
