M-payment: Sainsbury’s Self-Checkout Experiment

• Sainsbury’s is now testing a mobile self-service shopping app called Mobile Scan & Go in three of its retail stores.

• Mobile Scan & Go is an all-in-one app letting users make in store mobile payments.

• Customers having downloaded the app are invited to link it to their retail rewards card. They would scan a “Check in” QR-code upon entering the store, and scan each item using their Apple or Android smartphone camera.

• Once done with their shopping, the app sums up the products list and the loyalty points they earned. The user may then pay cash or by card, through scanning a “Check out” QR-code at the till.

Source: Press release

• Sainsbury's recruited volunteers through its website; registered customers get 1,000 points on their Nectar reward card.

• Mobile devices have become key elements in improving customer experience at retail stores, allowing for time saving for instance and remedying customers apprehension when having to visit their local outlets.

• In the retail industry, mobile phones are also used in assistance and informational contexts (as in China with Tesco and SK Telecom’s initiative back in September 2011). Retailers can expand their actual shelves outside their stores (see Carrefour’s virtual walls for instance).