Marks and Spencer is adding self checkouts in the dressing rooms.

According to Chain Storage, the British apparel and food giant is adding self checkouts to fitting rooms in its 180 clothing stores.

The move is to prevent shoppers from having to get in line twice during the shopping experience.

And the self checkouts are expected to be rolled out to about 100 stores by early 2028.

The initial plan is to add one of the checkouts per changing room area, with a number to increase depending on consumer demand.

To protect against shoplifting.

The stores would have staff quote, hosting, end quote, the changing room areas to make sure customers did not leave without paying.

Chris, do you think we're going to see other apparel retail retailers follow Marks and Spencer's lead in trying self checkout in the fitting rooms?

Ooh, that's, that's also a good question.

I think, sadly no, but I'd say that I think they should.

Right.

There's a tell for me, there's a tell for me that, that Marks and Spencer's doesn't have this all figured out yet.

And it's the 20, what is it?

The 20, 2028 date that they're putting this, that's four years away.

So that's kind of nuts.

And, and the idea in general an raises so many questions, like how do you take off the security tags?

How do you handle bagging?

But if we step beyond all of those, like, what do you have to figure out things and think about the possible, particularly in a world with RFID and overhead sensors.

I wonder if this setup doesn't actually help to thwart theft more in the long run because you can better monitor the garments going in and out of the fitting room.

And you have controlled exit and entry points that can be monitored by a single sales associate.

And then of course, you don't have the double queuing either.

So, so as an idea, I, I love where, I love that they're doing this and I think we're going to see more experimentation of how ultimately it should work best in a fashionable apparel, fashion, apparel setting.

That's my take.

Yeah, I mean we did the, the like security tag removal and bagging at the Zara in Madrid.

And I think that it can be done and especially if you have an associate there.

I mean, Uniqlo is doing this too, where you have to remove tags for their RFID based checkout.

I mean it can be done and.

With rfid you don't even really need the security tags anymore.

True.

That's the other point of this, right?

Yes, yes.

And you know, in talking with rfid, we just, you know, we tested this out, you know, in H and M when we were in New York.

And being able to like, order.

That's something that they're working on too at H M is how the.

How they can have transactions happen from the fitting room and you just walk out.

Because that is still the biggest frustration in all these apparel stores that have invested so much money in technology.

You still end up sitting in a line and it's one of the most frustrating experiences alive.

So I think it's going to be really cool to see to your point what RFID enables and how that can hopefully speed this process so that they're rolling this out in more stores more quickly than 2028.

And I just give a shout out to.

We just interviewed Troy Cywick from Gray Orange, who talks about G store and how stores like H and M have used the.

Some of the RFID overhead arrays like you were talking about, Chris, to help enable this kind of stuff in stores.

I think we can get there, but that's a great podcast to just learn more about the how of it.

And then finally, we're going to be going out to Lumen Field in a few weeks to shoot the Just Walk out technology with apparel in.

In Seattle.

And I'm really excited to see how that plays out as well, because I think that hits on this, this theft issue of, you know, if there's a controlled entry and exit and then you can just walk out with that stuff.

I think that's another way that we could start to see some of this apparel shopping experience changing for consumers for.

The better, which is all done with rfid too.

That's why this story is so important to pay attention to.