Metropol

Scan and Go?

t'was indeed. Also seen at most Waitrose stores and some Sainsburys (as Fasttrack).

It's the same Motorola handsets used in Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsburys from what I can tell.

Can anyone remember who made the old Safeway handsets?

Don't mean to divert the topic, but not keen on the latest ad slogan - spotted it on the telly earlier:

Pete wrote:It's the same Motorola handsets used in Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsburys from what I can tell.

Can anyone remember who made the old Safeway handsets?

They're the same as Waitrose. You occasionally see some Safeway coloured ones at Waitrose (they're a similar colour; I presume Waitrose bought them up as spares).

oh? the two waitroses i've been in have the new handsets of the same model used by Tesco

http://www.waitrose.presscentre.com/Pho ... -6d34.aspx

the safeway ones were much much larger and had only a mono LCD segment display iirc

Oh no, not them...



Didn't realise Waitrose had upgraded.

ah yes. "shop & go" was the name

A treasure trove of stuff comes up on google related to this

3. Shop & Go:- Safeway launched self-scanning in March 1995 and is now the world leader. It is now available in 160 stores across the UK. Customers use hand-held scanners to keep a running total of the amount they spend as they move through the store and check individual prices. Shopping is loaded straight into plastic green boxes on special trolleys. Payments are made at dedicated checkouts, and the green boxes packed directly into cars, avoiding the unloading and reloading of trolleys. Certain Safeway stores also boast Easi-Pay terminals which let customers bypass the 'checkout' altogether.

1995! so it was 18 years ago this first was introduced to Britain. Amazing.

Also
http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/safewa ... z2i7m2jhGa

Good find!

Extending the own-brand product range to include children’s clothes and babywear.

Read more: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/safewa ... z2i7ort9lI
Follow us: @Thetimes100 on Twitter | thetimes100casestudies on Facebook

Funny considering the recent expansion by Morrisons in the same area (along with all their other Safeway-like stuff).

I was having a little trip down memory lane re: Scan & Go last night and remembered how they eventually changed the system so you had to scan one of two barcodes on the cabinet before plugging it back in otherwise you'd get rescanned. Everyone always forgot to do this and I think that was the beginning of the end of it.

There were two models of the Handiscans however, the original with a much more green backlight and only one line of text whereas the newer one was nearly identical but with a bigger, better screen with three lines and a constant total (the other one you had to press the = button to get your total).

I presume, btw, that both these and the new style Tesco / Waitrose handsets contain a database of all the lines in the shop and their prices. Obv that's very easy these days but I wonder if it pushed the price up significantly back in 1995 re: storage.

Also you had to physically plug the Safeway models into their cradle to transfer the data whereas the Tesco / Waitrose ones obv work over wifi once you scan a control barcode. Funnily this makes it easier to accidentally walk out with the scanners from Tesco which I did do once having popped it back onto the trolley holder thing.

The only thing that perplexes me however is that you have to physically un scan things on the new handsets rather than just being able to select and delete.

This is odd as the have both touchscreens and a cursor / shopping list but maybe it's security related. (Also I believe the touch screen is enabled for the staff dotcom handsets, perhaps its to reduce jabbing at the screen by the great unwashed and therefore reduce damage).

I don't think a 3 column table (even if it had 100,000 rows) would have been taxing back then.