Centric makes checkout-free shopping possible at SPAR

With around 13 thousand stores in 48 countries, SPAR is one of the world’s largest food retailers. In the Netherlands, the chain has over 450 stores. SPAR wants to offer its customers the option of using their smartphone to scan and pay for items, and to make that happen they have teamed up with Centric and an app developer to launch a trial.

Paying with Tikkie

The Skippen app lets shoppers scan products using their smartphone. As soon as they are done shopping, customers get a Tikkie payment request on their screen that allows them to pay directly from their bank account. Instead of a printed receipt, they get a digital receipt in the app. Queuing for the checkout is a thing of the past, customers can now instantly pay and go.

This is how SPAR intends to provide an even better service to shoppers, says Martijn van der Hoeven, Format Manager: “This new technology allows us to create an even more pleasant shopping experience. The Skippen app lets customers scan and pay independently; checkout-free shopping may become the new normal. We hope to be able to further roll out the concept at our other SPAR formats in 2021.”

SPAR one of the first with checkout-free shopping

SPAR uses Centric’s Omnichannel Retail Suite for its shop automation. To make checkout-free shopping possible, Centric has provided POS business logic services to the developer behind the Skippen product scanning app. Centric gives the app access to the business systems to retrieve data such as product prices, promotions, product descriptions, payment handling and reports.

SPAR is one of the first retail chains to offer customers a checkout-free shopping experience. The proof of concept at two stores is set to run through to February 2021. After that, SPAR will decide whether to roll out checkout-free shopping at more of its stores.