Storefront Backtalk: Reports differ on self-checkout value

Evan at Storefront Backtalk speculates that an upcoming report from IHL Consulting Group will somewhat contradict another report from Aberdeen Group about the efficacy of self-service checkout systems. As his blog notes, "the reports on their own do not directlty contradict each other, in that the IHL report simply says a lot of retailers will move to self-checkout and the Aberdeen report doesn't dispute the intended purchases, but merely the wisdom of it." Still, it seems pretty clear that we have a case where differently-defined goals and metrics have lead to different conclusions, even though I'd be willing to bet that their test methodology and data are fairly similar.

In any event, the writeup is quite good, so you should go here to read about it.

Tags: Self-checkout, kiosks, retail kiosks, IHL self-checkout study, Aberdeen self-checkout study