A Comparison of Swedish and Non-Swedish Customers’ Perception of Grocery In-store Self-Scanner : A Study of Personal Shopping Solution

Abstract: Background: The advancement in digital products and digital services is a mixed feeling in the retailing markets. Emerging technologies are disrupting the mode of operation in a grocery store and one of this technology is self-scanner, an efficient tool of self-service. Self-scanner is a technology-based self-service alternative decision where the customer scan their goods and pay for their shopping without grocery attendant support. It is used progressively by retailer especially the big supermarket to deliver superior customers value and service to minimize the check-out period. The study found that older men and women likely to use self-scanner than the younger people (Lee et al., 2010). This study found that customer experienced several problems during service encounter with the self-scan check out (Lee et al., 2010). Among the problem is, customers technological skills and ability, level of technology, lack of system reliability and poor design of self-scanner technology. For the retailer, there is a problem of theft rockets and customer aggressive behaviour. Purpose: The study intends to examine how digitalization (e.g. self-scanner) affects consumers in-store shopping behaviour. To ensure that the purpose of this study is achieved, and test the relationship between Swedish and non-Swedish customers’ behaviour and perceived service quality, the theories of buyer behaviour (e.g. TAM and diffusion of innovation) are used as the fundamental theoretical model. Method: The study employs a survey as a tool for examining the factors affecting the use of grocery self-scanners between the Swedish and Non-Swedish customers. The questions were organised by themes and carefully designed to provide answers to the research questions as well as the constructs derived from TAM and Innovation Diffusion Theory. The survey questions focus on consumer’s self-scanner experience using the 5-Likert scale questions to measure the perception of self-scanner usefulness, ease-of-use, complexity and relative advantage. Also, the demographic information of the respondents was obtained through a series of demographic questions which were formulated and included in the questionnaire. The survey question was answered by 74 respondents through a paper-based questionnaire and Google online survey link distributed to the respondents via email address, Facebook messenger and WhatsApp platforms. All the respondents of the online survey were the people living in Sweden only. To analyse the data collected through the survey, Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique of structural equation modelling was applied using SmartPLS 3.0 statistics software student version. The study checks the reliability of the data by running a reliability test for Cronbach Alpha and compare the result with the rule of thumb. Further, variance Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) were conducted based on the independent and dependent variables for structural relationship. Conclusion: The result implies that non-Swedish users tend to use self-scanners at the grocery stores more than their Swedish counterparts if they perceived the device as ease to use. It could be observed from the results that perceived relative advantage has a greater influence on self-scanning experience of non-Swedish users than their Swedish counterparts. To reduce the rejection rates of using the self-scanning devices at the grocery store by the customers, the study suggests that the device and the process of usage should be made simple and convenient for the users.