Back in August 2012 Walmart kicked off the “Scan & Go” pilot program. The initial availability was limited to just one location in Bentonville, Arkansas, however Walmart has recently announced an expansion. In short, the program will soon be available in more than 200 stores. This is up from the current count of 70.

For those not familiar with Walmart’s Scan & Go, this is essentially an as-you-go self check-out process. You actually scan the barcode on your items as you add them to your cart. This has the obvious perk of being able to easily keep track of your spending, however it also allows you to bypass the regular register and pay at the self-checkout line. Walmart has said that “more than half of the customers who have tried the “Scan & Go” feature have used it more than once.”

While this sounds interesting enough, it is not yet anything that Android users will be able to take advantage of. You see, the Scan & Go program requires the smartphone user to be running an app. As you have likely guessed, that app is currently available only for iOS. There is some good news for Android users, Walmart has promised an Android app is coming. We have yet to learn a specific timeframe, however Walmart has said that it “should be out soon.”

In keeping with the growing Scan & Go program, Walmart also has plans to add self-checkout registers in additional stores. At this time self-checkout registers are in about 1,500 stores and the retailer has plans to add those in another 1,000 to 1,500 stores before the end of the year. Of course, while the doubling of the self-checkout registers and the Scan & Go going to 200 stores — those numbers still fall short of the more than 4,000 total Walmart locations.

[via SlashGear]

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.