We tested South Africa’s only self-checkout store

MyBroadband recently tested the tech-infused payment system at one of Shoprite’s Uniq, the only local retailer that supports self-checkout (SCO) across all its branches.

South Africans who have travelled to some of the world’s developed countries will be familiar with the SCO or assisted checkout (ACO) systems.

These are becoming increasingly common at major retailers and small convenience stores in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, and many parts of Europe.

The idea is not unusual or complex. Instead of a till worker having to scan the barcodes or enter product IDs for all the purchased items, the customers simply do it themselves.

There are generally still store employees attending to other tasks and assisting customers if they have payment problems.

Shoprite’s Uniq clothing stores use a more modern SCO system that ditches barcode scanning — which can have issues at times — in favour of radio-frequency identification (RFID).

Customers place all the items they want to buy in a rectangular hole or box in an SCO counter fitted with high-power RFID scanning technology developed by Keonn and implemented by StegTech.

The price labels on each item sold in Uniq include a printed ultra-high frequency (HF) RFID tag for automatic product identification and loading on the customer’s invoice.

MyBroadband tested the system during a recent visit to the Uniq store at Castle Gate shopping centre in Pretoria and found it worked well.

The outlet is one of 20 Uniq stores rolled out since Shoprite launched the chain in early 2023.

Aside from the self-checkout system, Uniq’s layout is similar to other clothing stores aimed at the middle to high-income markets.

At the time of our visit, which was around 18:30 on a weekday, we were the only customers in the store.

Our chosen items were three pairs of socks — two priced at R49 and one at R39.

We put the socks in the rectangular hole at the till, and the system accurately detected all three items almost instantly.

Customers can choose to shop with or without an XtraSavings account, which can be linked to the transaction by swiping or manually entering the card number.

One of the two store employees on duty at the time of our visit assisted us with navigating the checkout process for the first time.

However, the only real physical participation in the process was putting our items in a bag.

The employee told MyBroadband they did not really feel the self-checkout system threatened their job, as there was still a lot of other work in the store that required their attention.

After our brief shopping expedition, we were curious to see where exactly the UHF RFID tags were located.

Although the sticker has an RFID logo on top, the actual printed tag was on its back.

We attempted to scan the sticker with our own RFID reader but could not pull any data from it. This could be potentially due to Shoprite using a proprietary or encrypted identification system.

Other stores and systems

A few other select stores in South Africa — including certain Decathlon and Zara branches — offer SCO or ACO systems.

However, Uniq is the only outlet that supports RFID-enabled self-checkout as a standard feature in all its stores.

Shoprite has also piloted a checkout-less system at the offices of its digital business unit ShopriteX.

Dubbed Checkers Rush, the store allows shoppers to scan themselves in with a mobile phone app, take the items they want, and walk out.

The system uses cameras with machine vision technology and artificial intelligence to identify the products that customers take from a shelf or fridge.

A short while after exiting the store, the amount is deducted from a linked bank card and a receipt is sent to the customer via e-mail.

The feature is similar to Amazon’s Just Walk Out, which MyBroadband tested last year.

The US giant is scaling down this system at larger retailers in favour of smart baskets or smart carts that also use RFID scanning.

These systems effectively act like a mobile version of Shoprite’s counters.