Chat Checkouts





Dutch supermarket chain, Jumbo, has implemented a ‘chat checkout’ which allows shoppers to talk with a friendly server whilst they are paying for their groceries. This coincides with their ‘All Together Coffee Corner’, where shoppers can sit and have a coffee together.

These features are an attempt to beat the epidemic of loneliness that has swept many nations. According to Ouderenfonds, In the Netherlands ¼ of elderly people feel lonely.

Part of their ‘All Together Coffee Corner’ includes being able to talk to volunteers the "Alles voor Mekaar" Foundation. This is a foundation aiming to tackle loneliness by making contact between volunteers and elderly people, who live locally to each other, where they can spend time together or run errands. 
Self-service checkouts have become a usual sight in supermarkets around the UK, with global numbers of 191,000 units in 2013 and 325,000 units in 2019. Although there are many advantages to self-service checkouts for those who suffer with mental illness, or just want less social interaction whilst shopping, shopping can be the only way that some people get any source of communication.

In the UK “half a million older people go at least five or six days a week without seeing or speaking to anyone at all”, according to the Campaign to End Loneliness statistics. For these people, going shopping may be their only means to talking to anyone. Hopefully practices like the ones at Jumbo superstore can be implemented, and we can all come together to defeat the epidemic of loneliness, that is estimated to be “as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day”.

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