Customers and merchants benefit from the spread of self-checkout in the retail sector.

‍Bielefeld, October 2021
‍Thefirst self-service market as a precursor of today's widespread supermarket was opened in Germany almost 100 years ago. Today, supermarkets and discounters dominate the image of German food retailing, and the principle of self-service is also dominant in other sectors. In many cases, customers only encounter a store's staff at the checkout. Here, too, much has changed in recent years. Cash registers are now state-of-the-art, efficient computer systems, and paying with cash is increasingly being supplanted by cashless methods.

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"As much as our shopping habits have changed over the past decades and will change in the future, a payment process and thus a POS system will continue to accompany us."
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Tarek Hussain
Sales Manager POS Solutions at ANKER

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"As much as our shopping habits have changed in recent decades and will change in the future, a payment process and thus a POS system will continue to accompany us," emphasizes Tarek Hussain, Sales Manager POS Solutions at Anker Kassensysteme GmbH. "In this context, self-service in payment will continue to gain in importance and in the long term will establish itself as advantageous for all parties involved."

Already today, more and more large retailers are using self-checkout systems, at least in addition to classic POS systems, at which customers scan their purchases independently and preferably make cashless payments. As a traditional German company, ANKER Kassensysteme GmbH develops and sells hardware for all aspects of the checkout workstation. With it ANKER is equally present in branches of large grocers as well as with small and medium-sized retailers from a wide range of sectors.

"Today, the principle of self-checkout is still a topic that is mainly addressed by large chain stores," Hussain knows. "Increasingly, however, even companies with store numbers in the two- to three-digit range are becoming aware that there are good reasons not only to keep up with the times on the sales floor, but also to modernize at the checkout."

Building on its many years of experience in the field of technology, ANKER Kassensysteme GmbH is taking account of the foreseeable development. Accompanied by the takeover of the Berlin software company LocaFox, ANKER is specifically expanding its portfolio and once again presenting itself as a holistic POS system provider for hardware, software, integration and associated services.

Until now, a key reason for the decision of market-dominating retailers to invest in self-checkout systems was the associated savings potential in the area of personnel costs. In the meantime, it has also become apparent that the increasing shortage of suitable checkout personnel is also motivating small and medium-sized retailers to develop new strategies.

"The use of self-checkout systems offers retailers of all sizes the opportunity to implement contemporary consulting strategies," explains Hussain. "They can selectively expand their consulting capabilities on the sales floor without increasing staff time and costs. At the same time, self-checkout kiosks are proving to be an appropriate response to the increasing shortage of staff in the retail sector."

As interest grows and technology continues to evolve, self-checkout kiosks are becoming more attractive both technically and commercially. Mass-market-compatible prices and hardware and software increasingly designed for usability and customer experience now make self-checkout a customer-oriented alternative that can hold its own strategically.
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"In the long term, self-checkout will become a matter of course in more and more stores"

Tarek Hussain
Sales Manager POS Solutions at ANKER

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By expanding its hardware range to include a wide range of consulting services, including comprehensive project management, ANKER Kassensysteme is consciously presenting itself as a full-service provider in the future. In this way, the long-established company from Bielefeld aims to make the possibilities of modern, user-oriented self-checkout solutions available to a wider range of customers. The focus here is on retailers of all sizes, away from the dominant large chain stores.

Cloud-based self-checkout terminals from ANKER based on Android, Windows or Linux enable both use as a standalone solution and implementation in existing ERP systems.

"In the long term, self-checkout will become a matter of course in more and more stores," predicts Hussain. "Factors such as convenience and time savings are what count most for the customer. For small and medium-sized retailers, our full-service offering creates not only costing security but also a convenient and reliable way of mastering a technology that continues to focus on the customer, binds them and overall generates a profit that can also be measured economically."

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More info about ANKER self-checkout systems