Italian retail chain Unicoop Firenze is leveraging a mobile application to enable shoppers to scan items in their shopping baskets and check out the entire basket at the point-of-sale or self-checkout as the supermarket and convenience store retailer looks to enhance the customer experience and drive loyalty.

The chain has been offering self-checkout for years but is looking to enhance the experience via mobile as a way to drive acceptance and use. The Unicoop Mobile Shopper omnichannel experience was developed with NCR’s mobile shopper app and omnichannel platform.

“As the use of mobile technologies becomes such a natural and integral part of today’s lifestyle, retailers can use mobile technologies to interact with their customers in an appealing and convenient way thus increasing customer loyalty,” said Wolfgang Jonasson, vice president EMEA at NCR Retail Solutions.

“Customers who subscribe to the mobile app can create shopping lists, once they scan the items they are deleted from the lists and coupons are automatically applied,” he said. “When they are done, they don’t have to unpack their baskets at the checkout, instead they just scan their mobile phone to checkout their whole basket in one go.”

Unicoop Firenze is one of the largest cooperative retailers in Italy, operating 12 convenience stores, 63 mini markets, 29 supermarkets and hypermarkets.

Integrating store services
Unicoop Firenze is laying the foundation for an integrated omnichannel strategy with a unified business logic and data layer that integrates sales touch points, store management systems and ecommerce apps. As part of the strategy, it has launched a new app that integrates a broad range of in-store, loyalty and digital services and speeds up the checkout process. The goal is to improve the customer experience and increase the efficiency of store operations.

Using the SalvApp, Unicoop customers are able to create smart shopping lists and opt-in for dynamic, targeted marketing promotions.

Customers in a store can scan the items they want to purchase and apply digital coupons. Once customers have finished their shopping, they can check out the entire basket using their mobile phone at the NCF self-checkouts.

The app also includes features such as a store locator and detail product information.

Future retail trends
Unicoop Firenze has been focused on moving to a fully digital platform to support all company processes.

The chain has offered self-service solutions since 1998 and recently re-engineered the approach to include the use of the NCR shopping app.

By making new services available to members anytime and anywhere, Unicoop Firenze hopes to better members’ needs before, during and after purchasing.

The use of a unified data layer provided by the omnichannel software platform enables the routing promotion transaction data directly to the app. As a result, customers are able to have an omnichannel shopping experience while efficiency is enhanced in store operations.

The new platform is also laying the groundwork for Unicoop Firenze to take advantage of future retail trends, such as the Internet of Things.

“Mobile is a meaningful extension to self checkout, as it speeds up the checkout process and provides more choice for customers, which will increase acceptance and usage rates,” Mr. Jonasson said.