Panasonic’s e-checkout removes human from bagging area

TAKASHI MOCHIZUKI
December 14, 2016
The Wall Street Journal
Panasonic Corp. hopes to change convenience stores with a machine that scans and bags merchandise.
Panasonic is introducing ­convenience-store checkout ­machines that can scan and bag items on their own, joining ­Amazon.com in the push for more retail automation.
In the Panasonic system, a ­special shopping basket detects the merchandise in the basket and calculates the bill. After a customer places the basket in a slot, the bottom of the basket slides out and the merchandise drops into a plastic bag underneath, ready to be carried away. Customers can pay with cash or a card.
The system “could bring a ­revolution to the broader retailing industry,” said Sadanobu Takemasu, chief operating officer of convenience-store chain Lawson, which joined Panasonic on the project. “We all face a scarcity of labour.”
Panasonic is trying out the system in a Lawson store near its Osaka headquarters. For now, customers must manually scan each item before putting it in their basket, but Panasonic said the ­system would be fully operational in February once electronic tags have been attached to each piece of merchandise.
Amazon last week released a video featuring a different automation concept called Amazon Go. The store being tested by Amazon staff eliminates checkouts and cash registers altogether, instead having customers scan their phone as they walk in. The store is designed to determine automatically what items customers take from the shelves and charge their account when they leave.
Executives at Panasonic and Lawson said they didn’t want to eliminate employees from stores entirely. “Our store is also a point of communication for neighbours, where customers can enjoy chatting with clerks,” said Lawson’s Mr Takemasu.
In addition, they said the Amazon system might have limited appeal in a country such as Japan, where cash is still used widely. “We need a good solution also for customers who wouldn’t like a completely digitalised system,” said Yasuyuki Fukui, a Panasonic business-development executive.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it expected employment of cashiers in the US to grow by only 2 per cent from 2014 to 2024, well below the predicted 7 per cent growth in employment across all occupations and below the 5 per cent forecast for retail-sales workers.
“While retail sales are expected to increase over the next decade, employment growth of cashiers should be limited due to advances in technology, such as self-service checkout stands in retail stores and increasing online sales,” it said in an occupational outlook report.