M&S rolls out new checkout-free payment service in six London stores
Marks & Spencer has a launched a new scan and pay service called Mobile, Pay, Go following a successful trial over the summer.
Available to use now at the retailer’s Edgware Road and Waterside Simply Food stores in London, the service will be rolled out to its West Hampstead, Bankside, Canary Wharf and Stratford Westfield shops in the coming weeks.
To use the service, customers open the M&S app, scan products as they go and then pay from their iPhone using Apple Pay or a saved card on their M&S.com account. Customers can shop up to the value of £30.
Sacha Berendji, retail, operations and property director at Marks & Spencer, said: “Digitally enabled stores that offer a seamless customer experience are a crucial part of our transformation and our ambition to be a digital first retailer.
“Our customers – especially those who come to us for lunch – are so busy, any tech that can speed up the shopping experience is a massive benefit to them. Crucially, it also means our brilliant colleagues are freed up to offer great service in other parts of the store, helping to improve the overall experience in the lunchtime rush. We’re moving with pace and we can’t wait to hear what our customers think.”
M&S said the trial at Waterside Simply Food had led to the store seeing 20% of its sales coming from Mobile, Pay, Go with an average of 170 items being purchased through the app every hour.
The retailer expects the new service to be particularly popular in stores where there is a high proportion of transactions taking place over the lunchtime period. In M&S’s Waterside shop, 60% of transactions take place between 12pm and 2pm.
Jim Cruickshank, global head of digital product and UX at Marks & Spencer, said: “Mobile, Pay, Go is one of many new initiatives we’re developing as part of our digital transformation, with agile and lean practices at the core of our approach. We’ve worked hard to deliver the fastest and most friction-free customer experience possible.”
M&S said it will be gathering customer feedback and adapting Mobile, Pay, Go before rolling it out to more stores early next year.
Following an initial collaboration with The App Business, the roll out is being fully managed and developed by M&S’s in-house digital team.
