Tesco is to reduce the dimensions of its self-service checkouts – a change which it anticipates will reduce queuing times in its stores. Its new "slimline tills" are at present being trialled at three London outlets. If the experiment is successful, then a wider rollout will be effected. The tills, which are card-only, only take up about half the space a regular self-service till does. They were launched last week at Tesco’s St Paul’s Express, and Metros in Tooley Street and Canary Wharf. Queuing times are cut by a quarter, and 15 seconds are shed from the average time spent at a checkout, it was claimed. Around 80 per cent of transactions in the stores are now self-service. "These are world exclusives for us," said Tesco London MD Andrew Yaxley. "Service and experience are crucial and that includes getting people through the tills quickly". The sites that are piloting the scheme are all "on-the-move" stores in areas with high numbers of office workers, many of whom prefer to pay with cards or by contactless transaction, said Yaxley. © 2014 European Supermarket Magazine by Peter Donnelly
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