Hy-Vee Ends Use of Cashier-less Shopping App

A grocery store's app that led you skip the checkout line has officially come to an end less than two years after its launch.

Hy-Vee announced on Monday, February 20th that it would be disabling its Hy-Vee Scan & Go mobile app. The app was launched at select Des Moines stores back in 2021.

Scan & Go gave shoppers the option to scan items with their phones as they shopped throughout the store. When it was time to check out, shoppers could bypass any checkout lines and pay using their phones at the kiosks at the front of the store.

According to the Des Moines Register, following a trial run in select Des Moines stores, Hy-Vee expanded the app's use to nearly a quarter of its entire operation. Hy-Vee operates over 285 grocery stores across eight states, including Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

The Des Moines Register also reports that Hy-Vee wasn't the only company to take a loss with its scan-and-go shopping technology. Wegmans, the New York-based grocery store, pioneered its own program before abruptly discontinuing it in August due to significant losses in revenue.

CNN cited industry experts saying that consumers are liable/have taken advantage of scan and go apps by either innocently forgetting to scan items or purposefully not doing so, leading to lost revenue for the stores themselves.

In other recent news, Hy-Vee announced that they would scale back their "Aisles Online" program and also informed Hy-Vee employees that they'd be working on revamping employee perks, such as the 10% discount, after employees were abusing the benefit.

Read the full story in the Des Moines Register.