Cashier-less store makes new ally for retailers

Walmart is launching a store in Arkansas without cashiers to stave off the novel coronavirus, as retailers try new initiatives to keep customers and staff safe.

The retailer announced last month that it would cut cashiers and checkout conveyor belts from its Fayetteville store to "limit human interaction" and to see if checkout times are faster. Staff will be on hand to help customers.

In April health officials closed a Walmart store in Denver, Colorado, after three people died from COVID-19 and six staffers fell ill.

Self-service checkouts can already be found in many Walmart stores nationwide, but the Arkansas pilot program will be the only store where human cashiers are unavailable. If the pilot program works, it will be implemented in more stores.

Bob Phibbs, a retail expert with more than 30 years' experience and the chief executive of Retail Doctor in New York, said customer response to the change will be crucial.

"Retailers have tried to get rid of human interaction for decades, but every time you see someone saying this is a new course and this is the future, six months later we read they were all ripped out and you hear that they found shoppers didn't like them. That's probably why they're only doing it in one market."

In March Walmart installed a touch-free payment system to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. It allows customers to add a credit or debit card to their Walmart app and hold their phones to a wireless portal at the checkout.

There are 52 million employees in the retail sector in the US, according to the National Retail Federation, making it the country's largest private-sector employer. It contributes $3.9 trillion to annual GDP.

A raft of changes

In the first 100 days of the pandemic, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said 238 workers died and 29,000 of its members were infected or exposed to the coronavirus. The Washington-based union has 1.3 million members.

Target, Kroger, Costco, Albertsons, Whole Foods, Sam's Club stores and Walmart have installed various safety measures, including Plexiglas sneeze guards, to protect staff. Some stores began using more automated robots to clean floors.

Traditional brick-and-mortar stores have undergone a raft of changes to reduce the number of cashiers. Amazon Go's cashless' stores accept only electronic payments. In March Amazon began offering its technology dubbed "just walk out" to other major retailers, suggesting it could become a widely adopted way to shop after the pandemic.

The technology detects what products shoppers take from or return to shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When customers have finished shopping they can walk out, and their cards are charged for the items.

However, Phibbs said this may not work for the largest retailers.

"Amazon Go is a convenience store. In Walmart, people are going and buying car seats, and TVs, and exponentially that's different to picking up aspirin, or a fresh sandwich or a Coke."

Even with social distancing, some customers still may fear visiting brick-and-mortar stores for the foreseeable future. That is likely to make the online grocery sector grow by 40 percent this year, according to the market research company Coresight.

Coresight's US Online Grocery Survey 2020 found that the percentage would equate to almost $38 billion of online food and beverage sales this year, or about 3.5 percent of the total market.