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Checkout-Free Supermarkets, the Future of UK Grocery?

25th January 2022

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The race for the checkout-free supermarket is on. When Amazon Fresh pioneered checkout-free grocery shops in March 2021, the UK supermarket landscape changed. By the end of last year, Tesco and Sainsbury’s were trialling checkout-free formats, whilst Morrisons were testing the concept with its employees at its Bradford head office. Last week, Aldi opened their first checkout-free supermarket in Greenwich, London. 

Retail location data to locate checkout free stores, like Amazon Fresh
 
In October last year, Tesco converted one of their Express stores in High Holborn to a checkout-free store known as GetGo, as a one-store trial. In November, Sainsbury’s launched a similar concept using Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology in their convenience store in High Holborn. Whilst Amazon also opened their 7th Amazon Fresh store at Holborn Chancery Lane in November. 

Holborn is therefore the official pioneer of checkout-free retail in London, as the grocery retailers look to provide local busy workers in The City of London with fast, efficient, and convenient shopping that focuses on on-the-go food and drink. 

Looking to our RetailVision data, the Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Amazon Fresh checkout-less outlets all fall within the same Retail Centre; “Holborn (Camden)”, which is a "Shopping District", with a “Mass+” status and is within a “Secondary London Trade Zone”. Other Amazon Fresh outlets are also located in RetailVision Centres with the same retail profile as those in Holborn. 

In comparison, the Aldi store, although still located in a Secondary London Trade Zone, is in a Retail Park in Greenwich, which is anchored by value stores, giving it a RetailVision Value+ status, which is a typical centre profile for an Aldi store. 

Supermarket store location data for checkout free retail location planning, like Amazon Fresh, Aldi Shop & Go
 
If Tesco and Sainsbury’s were to consider growing their checkout-free propositions in similar locations in London, there are 37 other London RetailVision Centres with a Shopping District Centre Type and Mass+ status that fall within Secondary London Trade Zones. Sainsbury’s have existing stores in 7 of these Centres, could these be their next target for the Just Walk Out technology? Tesco, however, don’t have any existing stores in these Centres and therefore indicate potential Centres for new store locations.

Amazon Fresh’s cashless supermarkets have altered the UK grocery market as we know it and the existing supermarkets and discounters are taking action, with Tesco, Sainsburys and Aldi all opening their own checkout-free supermarkets. It will be interesting to see how shoppers respond, could 2022 be a pivotal year for UK grocery? Will these key UK supermarkets, along with Morrisons, make the decision to roll out this technology further? Will they focus around London’s convenience shoppers looking for on-the-go food and drink; or will Aldi pioneer the growth of this concept in larger-format stores outside of central London?

What do you think? Get in touch to let us know, or to find out more about our RetailVision dataset.
LeisureVision Points is a competitively price dataset of over 250,000+ leisure locations across the UK. Points is a comprehensive dataset of locations across 4 product types including Food & Beverage (F&B), Entertainment, Competitive Socialising and Sport & Fitness. Each Point is also assigned to one of over 100+ categories. The attributes associated with each point are: Name, Brand, Location, Product & Category.
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