Article in local paper about U-check:
heraldextra.com
Check it out
Customers take control at new grocery store
05/23/99 01:00:00 AM
By JENNIFER L. KLAUM+NZNER
Herald Correspondent
SALEM - Walking in through the doors of U Check, the store look pretty normal.
The carts are red and the entrance has a one-way gate, but nothing out of the ordinary. A customer walks down the aisles, selecting a few items to feed her family. Next, she walks
to the front of the store and stops.
Where are the cashiers? There's no one to check her out.
Someone approaches and asks, "You haven't been here before, have you?"
He maneuvers the cart to one of the twelve check-out lanes and demonstrates the check-out process. It's a do-it-yourself procedure.
A shopping cart sits on a scale next to the scanner where the customer, after scanning one item at a time places the article. The scanner will not scan the next item before the first is placed into the cart.
The computer knows the weight of every item in the store, so it will not allow the next item to be scanned without registering the first item as being in the cart. This avoids theft and improper scanning.
The customer pays for the purchase with a U Check debit card at the scanner or by cash, check, debit or credit card at the central cashier desk. Finally, the customer bags her own groceries at the front of the store at the counter.
According to owner Neldon Johnson, U Check in Salem is the first and only fully automated grocery store in the world. Besides being fully automated, offers competitive prices for a small town and discounts to shoppers using their debit card.
At U Check the customer is the checker and the cashier.
"I'm impressed," said JoAnna Hall, a Salem resident and frequent customer of U Check.
"It's very convenient especially for me since I run a day care here in Salem and I always need something. Now, I don't have to run to Payson or Spanish Fork. I'm also impressed with their prices."
Her children like to go there because they can scan their own items.
Neldon Johnson, the owner of U Check and president of International Automated Systems developed the fully automated check-out lane after working in the supermarket business for 30 years in Utah.
He discovered what all supermarket operators know, namely, that 57 percent of the costs are labor and 13 percent of the costs go to mismanagement and shrinkage which includes employee theft. His system targets these two areas.
"We cut our labor costs by 60 percent and shrinkage costs by 50 percent," said Randy Johnson, director of marketing for U Check and son of Neldon Johnson. "We plan on being able to lower the prices, and have already, and to pass the savings on to the customer, because we are able to pay lower labor costs," explained Neldon Johnson.
International Automated Systems owns the patents for the automated check-out lane and for the 3-D fingerprint identification machine which will be used with the U Check debit card.
"We also have the debit card which will give the customer five percent off their total purchase for using it," said Johnson.
"We can offer such a discount because it saves us money if the customer uses our debit card rather than writing a check or paying with cash," he continued. "The national average cost for processing a check is $0.47 and using this debit card will cost approximately $0.09."
The customer can use this card at the scanner, because U Check has installed 3-D fingerprint machines which the customer uses to identify themselves; the card will also have the customers fingerprint on the magnetic stripe.
If the stripe and the fingerprint machine agree, then the customer can pay with the U Check debit card. This debit card will be available just prior to the upcoming grand opening which is scheduled for this summer.
Another automated part of the store is the produce section. The individual items are numbered and corresponding numbers are on scales found at the center of the produce section.
The customer makes their selection, then places it on the scale, selects the corresponding number and a sticker is generated with the name of the item, the price per pound, the weight and price of their purchase.
One might worry that too much is left to the customer and some may be dishonest.
"Everything is recorded on video tape and on computer," assured Randy. "If we think that someone has been dishonest or mistaken then we can play back on the computer screen what was purchased and see it on video. This system is realistically more secure than a conventional store."
"The people of Salem have said that it's wonderful to have U Check in their neighborhood," said Randy. "People are either going to like it or not, but in the long run they will become spoiled, because this system is faster and smoother and they won't have to stand in lines," he explained. |
