Article

Self-checkout smackdown: IKEA vs. Lowe's

Two self-checkout terminals at different big-box retailers reveal truths about the user experience.

September 28, 2009

It isn't often that we truly can compare apples to apples when it comes to kiosks. There are many reasons: The applications on the kiosks are different (retail versus financial services, for example), the hardware and software manufacturers are not the same or the placements within the businesses are so different that a real comparison would be unfair.

Recently, however, we did have the rare opportunity to compare two kiosks in two deployments that presented a level playing field. Both kiosks belong to the retail self-checkout vertical market, and both use the same hardware and software from NCR. Furthermore, they are located in the checkout lanes in large big box retailers — IKEA and Lowe's — and both use the kiosks as an integral part of their customer experience strategy. The difference is that one provides a positive experience while the other leaves the customer frustrated.

Although the kiosks' exteriors are different to allow each retailer to leverage its brand — logos, colors, fonts — they essentially look the same and operate in the same manner. The usage process is identical: Customers scan or key in the barcodes on their items and move the product down to the end for bagging. When all the items have been successfully scanned, customers pay for their purchases, collect their receipt and proceed to the exit.

What can we conclude? Lowe's seems to apply more resources to keeping its kiosks fully operational. As far as I could tell, the kiosks all worked flawlessly. The IKEA units were problematic; several customers (in addition to myself) began looking for another kiosk the moment we encountered repeated difficulties. The store, even on a Tuesday morning, was quite busy, and all the other kiosks were in use, so we had to make do. At IKEA, customers are not given the luxury of finding a human to check them out — it's either use the kiosk or leave empty-handed. In a number of cases over the years, we have seen people give up and leave the store or attept to find a human-assisted checkout line.

Negative experiences can have a significant impact on the likelihood a customer will return to shop another day. But while Lowe's customers always have the choice of visiting a Home Depot or smaller hardware stores, IKEA customers are less fortunate. The chain simply has no real competition. The choices are too vast, the designs are too appealing and, most importantly, the prices are too low for IKEA customers to take their business elsewhere. They will return, grumbling about their less-than-happy experience at the checkout counter, but they will be back. It would be nice to know that in the future, they will find kiosks that are as easy to use as those at Lowe's.

Francie Mendelsohn is president of Summit Research Associates Inc., a kiosk-industry research and consulting firm.