Marks & Spencer is making a big change to its fitting rooms

If you’ve ever looked at long shop queues and thought ‘nah, it’s not worth trying on those trousers’, M&S is trying to change that.

The department store plans to add self-checkouts to all 180 of its clothing departments, and has already done so in 28 locations.

By early 2028, shoppers will be able to try on clothes and then pay for them in the changing rooms using a self scanner in over 100 of their stores.

This is despite concerns raised by the brand’s chairman Archie Norman last year that ‘middle class’ thieves were taking advantage of self-checkouts to shop lift.

Operations director Sacha Berendji told the Telegraph: ‘We’d like customers to be able to walk straight into the fitting room with no queue, try on what they’ve chosen, then pay there and just walk out.’

It’s not the first time that M&S have sought to innovate with their checkout experience.

In 2019, they replaced the robot voices of tills with the hosts and judges of Britain’s Got Talent, with a mixed response from shoppers with some calling the ‘disembodied voices of Ant and Dec’ telling them approval was needed ‘creepy’.

That was for charity, and the new changing room checkouts will have the standard voice.

For the moment, just one self-scan till will be installed per changing room area, but this could change if shoppers like them and want more.

People will still have the option of being served by a human being instead, and there will also be staff on hand to deal with the inevitable ‘unexpected item in bagging area’ problems.

As well as the changes to fitting rooms, there will also be changes in the food hall, with bigger self-service checkouts introduced.

Currently, the self-service tills are only suitable for the amount of shopping which can fit in a basket.

But the paper reported people will trolleys full of food will be able to use larger conveyor belt checkouts like those operated by staff, but with self-scanning technology instead.

The tech is already being rolled out and is present in 42 stores, including the Fosse Park store where four out of 10 conveyor belt checkouts operated by staff have been removed and replaced with self-service versions.

Many will welcome the option, but others may miss the human interaction or be frustrated by the difficulties of operating yet more tech into daily life.

Speaking to LBC last year, Mr Norman said there is also a tradeoff for businesses, as with cost savings and few queues come people tempted to steal: ‘With the reduction of service you get in a lot of shops, a lot of people go in and think, “well this didn’t scan or it’s very difficult to scan these things through and I shop here all the time, it’s not my fault, I’m owed it”.’

Mr Berendji said: ‘This is all about choice. If you want to be served by a colleague, that’s absolutely OK and you always can be. But if people want to serve themselves, they can do that instead.’

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