Cashier-free checkout system: to improve in-store shopping experience

Abstract

Purpose

The present paper explores the concept of a cashier-free checkout system from customers' perspective. Thus, the study attempts to find out the overall sentiment of people towards cashier-free checkout retail stores.

Design/methodology/approach

The study culled 7,348 comments from 10 videos about the Amazon Go store available on YouTube. The paper extracted positive and negative sentiments as well as their affective scores from the comments using Python 3.10.

Findings

The results revealed that all key service attributes of Amazon Go stores have a positive impact on customers' overall in-store shopping experience except pay. Similarly, the viewpoints expressed about these stores positively influence their overall in-store shopping experiences except for job. The job has an adverse effect on the outcome variable compared to like and support.

Originality/value

This paper states how a cashier-free checkout system is a better and more innovative retailing solution than in-store cash counter practices. Additionally, the paper provides guidance on how to deal with textual data and quantitative ratings separately when establishing empirical relationships.