Information Desks, Weighing Stations and Customer Service Counters
The desk a shopper goes to when something has gone wrong, or when the produce needs weighing. It is the only fixture in the store that has to look approachable.
One build, photographed in our own studio. This is the smallest category in the catalogue by some distance, and there is a reason for it: an information desk is almost always drawn from scratch against the front end it has to sit in, so what a photograph can usefully show is the construction rather than the range.
A timber cabinet under a dark stone-effect top with a recessed well for the scale, closed off by a curved glass screen. Lockable doors below, because a service desk holds the lost property, the returns and the float.
Recessed scale well, curved glass screen
Open the product fileThree service desks are on record — KS-F-01, KS-F-02 and KS-SG-01 — and all three are built to the counter position rather than to a fixed size. Only one build is photographed here. The other two are on record but not photographed, so this page shows the one build it can show properly instead of the same desk from three angles.
An information desk is the one counter in a supermarket where the customer is not in a hurry and is often not happy. It has to be a comfortable height to lean on, low enough to talk across, and secure enough to leave unattended for two minutes. Those three demands pull against each other.
A service desk usually stands within sight of the checkout run, often in the same line of sight from the door, so the two surfaces should agree. Our checkout records are unanimous at 850 mm to the worktop across all thirteen dimensioned builds, and a service desk drawn to a different height in the same front end reads as an error rather than as a variation.
None of the three recorded service desks carries dimensions of its own, so 850 mm is quoted here as the checkout reference it should line up with rather than as a recorded figure for this category. Confirm the height you want with your enquiry.
No size ruler on this page: a service desk is drawn from scratch far more often than it is picked from a range, so the size follows your counter position. What follows is what the desk has to accommodate.
There are no recorded dimensions for any of the three service desks on record. The 850 mm quoted above is the recorded checkout worktop height the desk should line up with, and it is labelled as such rather than passed off as a figure for this category.
Send the scale model or its platform size with your enquiry. The well is cut to the scale you actually own, and that is the one dimension on this desk that cannot be guessed.
The same desk, regrouped by what it is actually used for. Most stores ask this one fixture to do at least three of these four, which is why it is nearly always a bespoke drawing.
A scale sits in a recessed well so its platform is flush with the worktop, which is what lets a customer slide a bag of produce onto it instead of lifting it over a rim.
Somewhere to stand and talk across. The screen is curved rather than flat so it does not feel like a ticket window, which matters on a desk people approach when something is wrong.
Lost property, returned goods, the float and the first aid kit all live here. It is the only counter in the store that is left unattended and still expected to hold things safely.
The desk is usually seen in the same glance as the checkout run, so it is finished to the same colour reference. A near-match is more noticeable here than anywhere else in the store.
Two jobs get given to the same fixture, and they want different things from it. One is a machine position that shoppers use themselves in a few seconds. The other is a staffed desk where a conversation happens. Whether yours is one, the other, or both changes the drawing.
Weighing
Recessed scale well, flush platform
Self-service, unstaffed, and used for ten seconds at a time. What matters is that the scale platform sits flush in the worktop so produce slides on, and that the desk is in the produce aisle rather than at the front of the store.
Service
Curved glass screen, lockable storage
Staffed, near the entrance, and used for returns, complaints, lost property and questions. It needs somewhere to stand on both sides, secure storage below, and a screen that does not turn the conversation into a transaction at a window.
A great many stores combine them into one desk, which is what the photographed build is. If yours has to do both, tell us which one it does more often — that decides where the compromises land.
The four things a buyer checks when a sample desk is finally standing in front of them, quoted from our own build sheet rather than from a brochure.
Worktop
Dark stone-effect top, flush well
The well is recessed so the scale platform finishes flush with the top. A scale standing proud of the worktop means every bag has to be lifted over a rim, which is the difference between a weighing station that gets used and one that does not.
Screen
Curved, not flat
Curved glass over the back of the top. The curve is not decoration: a flat upright screen turns a service desk into a ticket window, and people approach a ticket window differently from how they approach a desk.
Cabinet
Board over a steel frame, locking doors
Board over a steel frame with locking doors. This is the counter where lost property, returns and a cash float live, and it is regularly left unattended for a few minutes at a time.
Match
Same RAL or PANTONE as the front end
The desk and the checkout run are usually seen in the same glance from the door, so they carry the same colour reference. Matching the front end is the whole reason to buy both from one plant.
Colour is given as a RAL or PANTONE reference and held across every category on the same order, so the service desk and the checkout counters leave the plant in one shade. The finish standard is set out in full on our About page, and the rest of the store is on the product overview.
Send the front end drawing with the checkout run on it. A service desk is easier to draw against the counters it has to match than on its own.
Every question below is one we would have to ask you anyway. Answering them now takes a round trip out of the quotation.
Six things buyers ask before they order a service desk. If yours is not here, put it in the message box above and it gets answered with the quotation. A service desk is specified alongside the lanes, compared in Types of Checkout Counters and Which Store Format Each Fits.
The three service desks on record — KS-F-01, KS-F-02 and KS-SG-01 — are each built to the counter position rather than sold in fixed sizes, so there is no size table here. In practice a service desk is drawn from scratch against the front end it sits in more often than it is picked from a range.
Match it to your checkout run. All thirteen dimensioned counters in our records are 850 mm to the worktop, and a service desk at a different height in the same line of sight reads as a mistake. That 850 mm is quoted as the reference to line up with rather than as a recorded figure for this category, so confirm the height you want with your enquiry.
Yes, and it is worth doing. The well is recessed so the scale platform finishes flush with the worktop, which means the well has to be cut to your actual scale rather than to a generic size. Send the model number or the platform dimensions with your enquiry.
Three service desks are on record and one of them is photographed. Rather than show the same desk from three angles and call it a range, the page shows the build it can show properly. Ask if you need the other two and we will send what we have. Three desks are on record for this category and one of them is photographed. Almost every service desk we make is drawn against a specific front end anyway.
Yes. A service desk holds lost property, returned goods, a cash float and usually the first aid kit, and it is the one counter in the store that gets left unattended for a couple of minutes at a time. The doors below the worktop lock as standard.
It absorbs everything the checkout lane cannot: weighing, returns, lost property, customer questions and the till float. That is why a retail service desk is drawn from scratch far more often than it is picked from a range — the fixture follows what your staff actually do at it.
