Abstract
The self-service technology innovation in hypermarket retailing has led to the shopping activity being served by the shopper themselves without relying on any service provider. However, this concept is still not implemented in Malaysia where the self-service concept is still supported by the service provider at the checkout station. This paper is suggesting that a new innovation should be implemented in the Malaysian hypermarket retailing industry by adopting self-service technology at the hypermarket checkout station. This research is developed based on observation conducted at various hypermarket retailing outlets within Malaysia. The findings from the general literature reviews are also gathered to strengthen the existing idea. The focus of this research is on the hypermarket retailing industry within Malaysia, especially in urban areas. Due to the modernization of the shopping trend, it is suggested that the timing might be right to explore implementing the concept of entirely self-service at hypermarkets in Malaysia to enhance the flow efficiency and effectiveness of the checkout operations. It is strongly believed that the introduction of this completely self-service shopping experience will be highly adopted, especially by the young generation in urban areas. This research explores the opportunity to enhance hypermarket retailing operations by upgrading the existing manual checkout station into self-service checkout stations using modern technology. It is expected that the idea for a totally self-service checkout system could be implemented in practice through the robust findings from this research.
Highlights
Hypermarket retailing is one of the modern retailing concepts that is widely accepted by most consumers, especially in urban and suburban areas
This paper is suggesting that a new innovation should be implemented in the Malaysian hypermarket retailing industry by adopting self-service technology at the hypermarket checkout station
Hypermarket retailers should ‘delight’ and ‘surprise’ consumers (Knee, 2002) by limiting consumer sovereignty and persuading them to act in particular ways
Summary
Hypermarket retailing is one of the modern retailing concepts that is widely accepted by most consumers, especially in urban and suburban areas. The wide variety of product choices and brands has become the main attraction for consumers to purchase basic necessities and household products from hypermarkets (Hassan & Rahman, 2012). The uniqueness of this modern retailing concept is that the consumer is being forced to do all the shopping activities themselves by taking the trolley or basket, choosing the product from the shelves and bringing the products to the counter for payment. The only place where there is any interaction between the consumer and the service provider is at the checkout station. The checkout station is the most crucial spot in the hypermarket operations. The checkout station operation has yet to be transformed into a completely self-service hypermarket operation
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