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Costco Is Testing a New Feature That Lets Customers Skip Checkout Lines

“Scan & Pay” lets Costco shoppers skip long checkout lines by scanning items and paying for them through an app.
ByCaLea Johnson|
There‘s yet another reason to go to Costco.
There‘s yet another reason to go to Costco. | slobo/GettyImages

Costco, the wholesale warehouse chain with a cult following, encourages its customers to bulk-shop to their heart’s content. But each consumer’s impulse to heap their cart with deals can lead to lines with long waits at the register. The membership-focused franchise aims to address the issue with its newest feature, Scan & Pay.

As its name suggests, the technology—a collaboration with Instacart—allows shoppers to scan the items they want, add them to their digital shopping carts, and pay for everything via the company app. Customers must then scan a QR code at a kiosk before exiting the store.

During the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings call, CEO Ron Vachris described some early Scan & Pay test results as “very positive” for members and “successful” at speeding up lines. According to ABC 25 Columbia, over 50 percent of Costco members have already downloaded the Scan & Pay app during its current testing phase.

Costco isn’t the only chain that’s using technology to expedite its checkout process. One of the big box store’s biggest competitors, the Walmart-owned Sam’s Club, has offered a similar feature known as Scan & Go for a while. As Fortune reports, Sam’s Club developed the tech in 2013, but customers could initially only pay for their items via self-checkout registers. The retailer eventually allowed shoppers to checkout and pay through its designated app. Now, Sam’s Club wants to get rid of self-checkout lines all together in favor of Scan & Go—it even replaced manual receipt checks with AI and “computer vision tech” in January 2024.

This isn’t Instacart’s first foray into the world of high-tech grocery shopping, either. The grocery delivery service recently started using artificial intelligence features to improve its inventory prediction technology and provide more accurate updates to customers.

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