Shoppers at self-checkout lanes scanning all their groceries after they're done shopping? Old school. More stores are letting customer tally their choices with a phone app or store device as they roam the aisles.
For customers, scanning as they go can be faster and make it simpler to keep track of spending. For stores, the big expansion coming this year costs less than installing more self-checkouts.
The expansion of scan-and-go comes from retailers trying to make store shopping more convenient and hang on to customers used to Amazon, which just opened a cashier-less store in Seattle. And like other automation technologies, it shifts more of the work to shoppers while freeing up employees for higher-value tasks. It's happening when retailers are trying to make workers more efficient amid rising wages.
