PURPOSE: To enable sale to be done without a shop assistant by reading out the data of purchasing articles self-registered by a customer by a portable scanner, and electrically paying the cost with a card, and then allowing the outlet to open automatically.

CONSTITUTION: A customer comes in the store from an entrance 4, and receives a portable scanner from a payment station 12 by an identity card, thereby self-registering the bar code of articles selected from a display case 8. When the customer put the scanner at a recovery place neat the exit, a reading out station 14 operates to read out the data of the scanner to then be transmitted to a computer 16 and putting out a receipt simultaneously. Also, when the customer indicates the paying card to the paying station 20 of a payment device 18, the data is sent to the computer 16, payment is executed electronically, and a passage 24 to the exit 6 is opened automatically. The registered articles are checked by a preliminarily determined probability means. The customer not requiring electric payment pays cash by showing the receipt of the station 14.