One of my first real jobs when I was a teenager was working as a cashier at a grocery store. I was young and socially awkward at the time. I had to wear a tie every day yet did not — and still do not, actually — know how to tie a tie. I was prone to ridiculous and nonsensical outbursts when speaking to customers. I could never remember most of the codes for fruits and vegetables. I lived in constant fear of running out of change in my till. I only worked there for about five months, and since that time I’ve had a bunch of jobs, all of which you would consider undoubtedly more grown-up than cashier at Sobeys and yet, still, I consider it to be the most stressful job I’ve ever had.

A lot of it was because I hate customer service — I just am not cut out for it, like some people are — but another factor in my constant stress was that grocery stores are, with some rare exceptions, tremendously badly designed places. They emphasize customer service, but only in ways that hurt efficiency. The goal seems to be to confuse the customer into buying more food — and, more recently, lawn furniture and mass market paperbacks and firewood (all things you need for a solid weekend) –, at the expense of giving customers what they actually want. While everything else has continued to grow and change with new technology, the biggest advancement grocery stores have made across the board in the last twenty years is the elimination of the personal cheque.

So let’s make it better. Let’s build a better grocery store. It can’t be that hard, can it?

1. Eliminate the one-line-per-cash set up

My least favourite part of shopping is undoubtedly the check-out process. I’m not really adverse to waiting, but why, when the store is busy, do I have to pick a check-out aisle blindly? There is nothing worse than getting in a line behind four people, then watching as the right next to you, which had the exact same number of people moves way faster than yours. Not only is it unfair, it also leads to people spending their time pushing their cart up and down the front of the store, like they’re on a mission from God, looking for that one cashier that just opened and doesn’t have any customers yet. They’re spending time looking to save time, which rarely works outside of a retail setting, and never works within it.

Banks figured out how to deal with this DECADES ago. You have one line, some velvet rope, and the person in front proceeds once there’s an open cash. Not only is it more fair, but it takes all guesswork out of something that, really, shouldn’t require a strategy — you’re just paying for food, after all.

To be fair, some upscale food stores in New York are already doing this. And it’s leading to shorter wait times. Shocking!

2. Enough with the coupons

Is there anything more sexist and inefficient about the grocery store experience than coupons? They harken back to the days when there were housewives who could afford to spend their time going through the newspaper with scissors all to save 30 cents on a can of soup. It made sense, I suppose, when there was a distinct divide within the family. He worked. She shopped. Everyone had roles and so some kind of secret grocery shopping savings publication wasn’t entirely out of place.

But the world is different. He works. She works. They both shop. The days of giant weekly shopping lists have been replaced for a lot of people by stopping into the 24-hour grocery store after work to grab dinner and a couple of things, and getting stuck behind someone with a wad of coupons the size of a ham sandwich is just slow.

And further, they just don’t make sense. You want people to try your new brand of product? Set up a sample booth in store. It’s far more effective. You want to reward people for shopping at your store? Consider volume discounts, like amazon does with free shipping — give me $5 off my bill when I spend more than $100. Give me reward points or something that I can use the next time I’m at your store. And if you absolutely MUST have specific-product coupons, make sure they’re scannable by your damn computer, so some kid cashier — who I used to be — isn’t calling his manager every time to ask how to input it manually.

3. Develop decent Point-of-Sale software

Why is it that software that businesses literally depend on is always so poorly designed? Without their Point-of-Sale scanner software, grocery stores would be utterly screwed. Nobody could buy anything! And yet these programs look and perform like they were put together by people who just mastered LOGO. Somewhere out there (apparently in the late 80s) there was a computer science class where the “Design Point-of-Sale Software” lesson must have immediately followed “Learn how to make the turtle draw diagonal patterns.”

I was willing to tolerate the program when I worked in the store, but now it’s almost 10 years later, and aside from some very small changes at some stores, the program they use seems nearly identical. It’s slow. The menu system is entirely unintuitive. It looks like crap.

Produce is the worst. We had this big printed book of codes next to a listing of all the fruits & vegetables they had in the store. To this day, I still remember the codes for Bananas, Romaine Lettuce and Red & Delicious apples — because they were pretty much the only ones I knew, and so odds were that if you came through my cash your exotic looking vegetables would ring up of one of those three items. Don’t worry — it was almost always a big money saver for you.

It’s 2008. We’re in an era where people are doing amazing things with JAVASCRIPT, and the stores are still relying on something that looks like QBASIC. Could they not devise a system that doesn’t rely on each cashier having a printed book? What about, instead of an irrelevant code, all the cashier had to do was type the first letter of the item, and an auto-complete list would come up, complete with a small picture? What if, instead of having to call the supervisor on the phone, the cashier could just hit a button on his terminal and the supervisor could resolve the situation from upstairs (or around the world, even)? If something doesn’t scan, why isn’t that UPC flagged and sent to a supervisor so they can resolve the situation? What about logical menus, nicer fonts, a display that the customer doesn’t have to squint at to see their total? Does this all sound crazy?

4. Establish Logical Locations for Can’t-Miss Items

It seems to me that grocery stores are still set up as if they expect people to languidly walk up and down all the aisles, looking at each and every product. In many case — and I hope I’m not alone — I’m generally in a rush when I’m shopping. I go to stores where I know the layout, so I can get through things fast and get home.

So it sucks a lot when I get into line at the cashier and realize I forgot something I really needed to buy. Inevitably it’s one of the necessities — eggs or bread or toothpaste — which makes it all the more annoying than the impulse-buy section, housed very conveniently right next to where I stand as I realize I’ve forgotten something, has nothing but chocolate, gum and trashy magazines.

Seriously, throw some of the most commonly forgotten items right next to the cashier and watch the number of “I’ll be right back; I just need to grab something!” incidents go into a terminal decline. Not only does it have the added benefit of being incredibly convenient, particularly for people who just need to buy the staple items and nothing else, it also serves as a built-in reminder. People are far more likely to remark “Oh, yeah, we need bread!” then “Oh yeah, we need that new issue of InTouch!”

5. Make Self-Check Out Better

I’m a big proponent of self-check out. I’m a big proponent of most things that some would argue eliminate jobs. I like to buy my movie tickets from a machine, I like to pay for my gas at the pump, and I really like to scan my own groceries when given the opportunity.

But it’s a common sight now to see the self-scan check-outs looking like a land of confusion. People get incredibly flustered staring at these machines. It’s like an Amish kid staring at his first Poker hand. He doesn’t know what he’s doing but he really doesn’t want to draw any attention to himself.

Fixing this isn’t hard, and a lot of it relates to simply developing better Point-of-Sale software. Scanning items is a mindless activity, and I doubt anyone would have any issue at all with it if it weren’t for the Self-Scan security-check scales you need to put your items on. These are a bad idea, just as checking your customer’s receipts at the door is a bad idea — anything that makes your customers feel like you think they’re all potential criminals is a bad idea. Plus, how much theft do you think scales at the self-check out actually prevent? Especially when they can be thwarted by not putting your stolen goods in a bag.

Self-scan check-outs are one of the few innovations grocery has seen in the last few decades that actually looks to create efficiency for the customer, but it’s a lost cause when nobody seems willing to actually look at usability and interface design. Hire competent software developers and self-check out might finally became a serious alternative to standing in line. As it is, much of the time it’s slower than the manned check-outs, especially when you get stuck behind the middle-aged person turning red in the face.

And on and on

There are more, of course, but even just these five simple things would vastly improve the grocery store experience. Let’s hope someone is listening.

Photo by What Rhymes with Nicole. Licensed under Creative Commons

Tags: grocery store, innovation, retail