Supermarket chain axes almost all self-service tills after backlash from shoppers

Booths said they would remove the machines following customer feedback

A supermarket chain is axing nearly all its self-service tills, after receiving customer feedback that they were “unreliable” and “impersonal”.

Booths, which operates 28 stores in northern England, is believed to be the first UK supermarket to move away from using self-service tills, which have increasingly replaced manned tills in recent years.

All but two of their stores, which are based in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire, will remove their machines in favour of staff serving customers.

“We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience and therefore we have taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores,” the company said.

The chain, which describes itself as a northern Waitrose, added: “Delighting customers with our warm northern welcome is part of our DNA and we continue to invest in our people to ensure we remain true to that ethos.”

Self-service machines have increasingly replaced manned tills in shops across the UK (SolStock/Getty iStock)

Self-checkouts will remain in two stores in the Lake District in order to meet customer demands during busy periods.

Speaking to BBC Radio Lancashire, Booths managing director Nigel Murray, said: “Our customers have told us this over time, that the self-scan machines that we’ve got in our stores they can be slow, they can be unreliable, they’re obviously impersonal.

“We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you’ve got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don’t know one different apple versus another for example,” he added.

“There’s all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you put any alcohol in your basket somebody’s got to come and check that you’re of the right age.”

Self-service tills became popular in the 1990s and by 2021, there were 325,000 in operation across the UK.

However, they have been the subject of complaints with one petition calling on Tesco to “stop the replacement of people by machines”, gaining almost 250,000 signatures last year.