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Hi, I’m Kevin Coupe and this is FaceTime with the Content Guy.
So, I know I talk a lot about Amazon Go and the siren call of the checkout-free shopping experience. Some of you think that I talk about it ad nauseam. (I know this because I read my email.)
The reason that I like the checkout-free experience so much is because most checkouts simply aren’t very pleasant experiences. Not only do you have to spend money, but the people who work the front end often are brusque and more interested in talking to each other than in chatting with the customer.
Today, though, I’m in a store where the checkouts are staffed by people who are happy, pleasant, informative, and engaged with shoppers - Dorothy Lane Market, in Dayton, Ohio.
Here, the checkouts aren’t a gantlet to be endured between the store and the car. They are an extension of the wonderful shopping experience that is Dorothy Lane Market. Here, not only don’t they offer checkout-free shopping, they don’t even have self-checkout. They want you to interact with their people, because that is part-and-parcel of the experience.
That’s the point. Not every retailer can or should chase the Amazon Go business model. But if you have checkouts, it seems to me that you should do everything you can to make it a pleasant, helpful part of the shopping trip. This isn’t about money - it is about attitude and commitment.
Dorothy Lane Market gets it right … as it almost always does.
That’s what is on my mind this morning and, as always, I want to hear what is on your mind.
- KC's View:
