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Kinsale a first for self-checkouts

November 10th, 2016 4:55 PM

By Southern Star Team

Two of the new self-checkout tills at Smith's SuperValu in Kinsale.

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Smith's SuperValu in Kinsale has become the first store in West Cork to install self-checkouts in their store. 

BY KIERAN O’MAHONY

SMITH’S SuperValu in Kinsale has become the first store in West Cork to install self-checkouts in their store. The self-checkouts went live on Tuesday October 18th and the response from customers since they were installed has been extremely positive.

‘We were aware that there were times of the day when queues were forming at the checkouts, particularly at peak periods. We decided to install four self-checkout tills to give our customers the choice to use,’ said Dwayne Hunt, general manager of Smith’s SuperValu. ‘Of course they always have the option to go to one of our staffed checkouts as we still have two express tills as well as a bank of belted checkout units.’

The customer response to the new checkout has been extremely positive and they have helped reduce the queuing times and are extremely customer-efficient. Smith’s will always have a staff member at the self-scan tills to offer assistance and the tills also give audio guidance and ‘follow me’ lights to provide additional visual cues. ‘While it was a very significant investment for us we really believe that it will pay dividends in terms of improved customer satisfaction,’ said Jacinta Smith.

Since their re-location to their state of the art store at Kinsale Quarter in the Glen in April 2014, the store reached the finals of the SuperValu Store of the Year as well as Off-Licence of the Year in 2015. It is also the only supermarket in the country to reach the finals of the Retail Excellence Ireland Awards this year with the winner due to be announced on November 5th.

‘We bought the site in 2004, but it took 10 years to develop the new centre between recession and planning. However the customer reaction has been phenomenal and they really appreciate the car parking, especially the basement car park on wet days.’

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