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I know this isn’t the most popular opinion, but I love self-checkout systems when they’re available and used correctly. My local supermarket closed 2 10-item-or-less lanes and put 6 self-checkouts in the same space. I probably make 2 trips/week to the store for fewer than 10 items, and being able to check myself out has been a huge time saver. There are still another 8 lanes with cashiers for larger shopping trips. If the supermarket can avoid the race to the bottom thinking of "well, we replaced 2 lanes, maybe we can also replace the other 8), it’ll be a nice compromise.
Now contrast that with my local Home Depot, which typically has 1-2 cashiers MAX at any given time. They have turned the checkout process into a tedious pain in the ass, and I’ve more or less stopped shopping there as a result.
Your store did it smart. My local grocery store has 8 self checkouts by one door and 8 more on the other end by the other door. Although there are 10 or more normal checkouts with human cashiers, Ive never seen more that two open at a time.
They’re a godsend at Costco when I have like 5 items and the normal lines are super long.
Is there something weird about how your Home Depot did it? I absolutely love the self-checkout at the Home Depots in my state. They all have the wireless hand scanners so I just pull my cart up, beep beep beep beep beep beep beep and off I go I fucking hated before they had self checkout at Home Depots it always took for fucking ever now I’m in and out regardless of whether I need one thing or 20 things
There are two in my area and both have the same problem: there will be a single non-pro bank of 8 self-checkout lanes, and then a bunch of empty lanes, one or two of which will have cashiers. Of the 8 self check-outs , one or two are always broken, so that leaves 6. Add in a bunch of large/heavy/bulky items that are hard to scan and now the line for self check-out is pushed back into the store, blocking multiple lanes and aisles. And as soon as you have certain items in your cart (molding/lumber by the LF, loose fasteners, etc.) you need an assistant to come help you anyway. Maybe it’s just the customers in my stores, but it’s just a terrible, slow, inefficient process.
Maybe it is just the customers in your area, mine is usually not backed up. I don’t have any problem with the various loose items there is always a barcode somewhere and if I don’t see one on the product I’ll take a picture of the one on the Shelf so I can just scan it right off my phone at the checkout¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fuck this bullshit article.
I fucking love self service. I don’t want to deal with people.
Just let me buy my stuff and get out. I don’t want or need small talk.
I want the disgusting supermarket shop to be as cold and sterile as possible.
I bring my own bag. I’d Honestly rather just scan everything as I go. And just pay as I walk out.
Current system is stupid. Walk around shop picking things up. Then take everything out and rebag
There are stores trialling exactly your preferred method. One of my local supermarket chains has portable barcode scanners on a wall. You pick one up, scan your groceries as you collect them, then take the scanner to a self checkout that links to the scanner. At that point you pay for your items and leave.
Best Buy started doing this with their app. I’ve used it multiple times already. It’s so convenient. Scan the barcode with your camera in the app, it adds to the cart, pay when you’re done.
Anecdotal experience: Unfortunately, products that are locked up create a problem. I went in for two items. One of which was a single RAM stick for laptops. The employee refused to give me it even though I was literally going to pay for it on the spot as I had already collected the other item I wanted. He insisted it goes to the register per policy. I quickly got the barcode as he held it, then paid. “There. Paid for. See” as I showed him the screen. Dude was so annoyed as he handed me the RAM.
They aren’t just trialing it. I’ve been shopping this way for 15 years. Once the system was down so I went to another location. I won’t shop without a handheld scanner ever again.
Yup had these a few years ago in UK. Just not all shops do it.
That system has been a thing for at least a decade in most supermarkets in Sweden, is it not a thing in (I assume) the US?
Assumption wrong.
Although may be correct. I don’t know USA shops.
In the UK some shops have had them for 10 + years but not all shops. Lidl for example did not.
Although my current area is NZ. Some shops again do have them but not all.
small talk? If you start small talk in Germany, the cashier will probably be confused…
Note to self. Move to Germany.
To do list
Learn German. Get a German job
Cheap ass rent control. C’mon.
Bratwurst. Kick on
When interacting with the bus driver, make sure to say only “Hallo” when you step in. Technically, this is even optional and only 33% do that.
When leaving the bus, don’t say anything. It’d be weird.
And under no circumstances, talk to them between entering and leaving.
The only legitimate way to talk to them is when the bus stopped, you and the driver are both outside and he or she approaches you first.
Whoa there, overachiever. Saying “hello”? A curt smile, a slight nod and a passing glance. All things in moderation, after all.
We don’t smile here, unless there is a good reason.
You need to learn a lot before moving here!!!11
I don’t smile so if fit right in
Sehr gut.
Literally the opposite of Scotland. Must say thanks or cheers when leaving bus. Weird not to
This is like applauding the pilot after they do the absolute minimum of their job (landing the plane)…
Just common decently. Thanking a cashier. For doing their job. A sales person. A doctor/ nurse.
A cleaner. Just polite
Scan and Go is becoming very wide spread in Denmark. It’s lovely! Cuts down the time for a quick shopping trip on the way home from work to less than half
Had it in the UK. Just not all shops. Needs to be more widespread
Is self scan that rare around you? One of our (Latvia) two big brand supermarkets have scanners you carry around, then deposit at the slef checkout lines. The other one, however, I just scan everything with my phone, then at checkout scan a QR code with my phone and pay.
Yeah unfortunately don’t have those at our nearest places. But I know the UK had lots of them
I stopped using them. It’s always something, requiring me to wait for and deal with people.
The rack with the mobile scanners is full, and scanner not in the rack is not paying, so flag someone to deal with it.
The thing double scanned an item, and it takes someone from the shop to remove the scan, so wait and then explain.
I had a coupon, but the system can’t deal with those. Again wait and explain.
And because now apparently I’m a trouble maker I get flagged for a random check by the system regularly. Again wait and deal with that.
On average, it turned out to be less waiting and dealing with people by getting in line at the regular cashier.
You can do scan and go at Walmart now, if you were previously only using that at Sam’s Club. It’s fantastic.
Check out USA. Not behind on tech. Congratulations
I always use the store app to scan as I shop and just pay at the machines at the exit here in Portugal. Hate shopping any other way.
Jeez you sure love working for free
I love self-checkout. Faster, don’t have to rush because someone is waiting for me, don’t have to interact with people, can easily double check it had the correct price etc. They’re fantastic
At my grocery store the line for self checkout is longer than for the registers, so people would very much be waiting for you. And instead of the time the cashier takes to scan all your stuff being out of your control, they’ll judge you personally for being slow instead.
Even with the same lenght line, in here you’d get through much faster because instead of lining up for the one register you’re lining up to several self-checkouts
But the people at the self checkouts do it at a fourth of the speed, so it cancels out. Plus the line for the self checkouts is four times as long anyway.
Although it’s not always easy to predict how long something takes. Self checkout is less vulnerable to someone paying in all nickels or having an issue with their food stamps. I’ll take that chance to not have to stand there and guess what species of banana I’m trying to buy, though.
Not here, people at the self check-outs go fast because they usually have less stuff and slower boomers are afraid of them anyway so they’ll be out of your way.
I’ll take that chance to not have to stand there and guess what species of banana I’m trying to buy, though.
Here you weight your vegetables, fruits, candies in the shop before you go to the checkout. Apart from Lidl which has either the cashier weighting them for you at the register or you’ll weight them at the checkout. But it’s the odd one out
I remember we weighed our own vegetables in Norway in the 90s. It stopped when they got the fancy registers which scanned barcodes and had a built-in scale.
I hope they don’t change it here. I like weighing my own stuff. Nicer to check how much I got and no need to remember what sort of tomatoes I got since the number is in the price tag. And no way for the cashier to fuck me over by weighing them as a pricier thing.
Spanish tomatoes for the price of Finnish ones? Get the fuck out of here! What do I look like, fucking Croesus??
You’ve presumably had registers with barcodes for several decades now, so I’m guessing your way of weighing produce is pretty safe.
they’ll judge you personally for being slow instead.
If you’re slow because you’re old or disabled, it is what it is. I might even help if I’m up front.
If you’re tired or something but clearly trying, it is what it is, people judging you are the dicks.
If you’re on your cell phone, or not paying attention, or so incapable of reading that you have to call over a Walmart employee to tell you that yes, that says napkins on the monitor (actual thing I saw once and yes it’s cuz she couldn’t read, she said so): you deserve the judging.
What are they talking about, self checkouts are great. It makes the shopping experience more fair for those with fewer items
I feel the people who don’t like self checkout keep trying to push the idea that it’s bad or putting people out of jobs, rather than just admitting it’s convenient for most people. If i want to buy one or two items I don’t want to queue up behind 5 people with a full trolley.
I don’t like self checkouts, but not because of that. Probably depends on what chains you go to / where in the world you live, but it was almost always very slow and full of errors for me (most of the time, incorrectly detecting the weight of either side, thus stopping the whole process and making me wait for a human to unlock it). And even if everthing goes well, I have no chance to even reach half the speed that a cashier can.
The one exception is a clothing store that used RFID tags. You put the items in the box and everything is instantly scanned, no mistakes. If it were like that everywhere, I would much prefer it.
I’ve never seen a clothing store using RFID tags before but that’s quite interesting technology. I’ve just done some reading up on it and I hope more places start using it it seems convenient and something I’d like to see adopted on a large scale.
Don’t know what country you’re in, but Decathlon in the UK (and possibly other countries) does this. There are no traditional manned checkouts in there at all.
If it always has issues it makes sense you wouldn’t like it, where I use it there are rarely any errors and there are usually regular cashiers still if you don’t want to self checkout, personally I’d rather scan my groceries than have someone else do it. I do agree it would be much better if they had an RFID system like you mention though.
Before they put self checkout, we had a fast lane, 10items max. Now no more of fast lane.
Most grocery stores I’ve been to in the U.S. have regular self checkout and express checkout 10 items or fewer.
Having express self-checkoit is great. The Kroger near me went full-self-checkout. They have large kiosks that mimmic the traditional checkout belt kiosks, except the customer scans at the head of the belt and the items move into the bagging area.
If you have a full cart, you scan all the items, checkout, walk to the end of the belt, and bag all of your items. Takes twice as long as bagging while a cashier scans (for solo shoppers), and because of the automatic belt the next customer cannot start scanning until you finish bagging, or their items will join the pile of your items.
It effectively destroys all parallelism is the process (bagging while scanning, customers pre-loading their items with a divider while the prior customer is still being serviced), and with zero human operated checkouts running you get no choice
If you have a full cart, you scan all the items, checkout, walk to the end of the belt, and bag all of your items.
Okay? But there’s no cost savings on my end and I don’t have all the codes memorized, so it takes longer than if a dedicated employee handled it.
with zero human operated checkouts running you get no choice
The humans are still there, though. They’re hovering over your shoulder to make you did the job right and you’re not buying booze under-aged and you didn’t steal anything. All the business has done is off-load the manual labor onto the customer and slowed down the checkout process as a result.
Yeah, I was complaining too. Or am I not understanding you?
Definitely crossed our wires.
I have a lot of anxiety, sure I can just ‘get over it’ or ignore it and go to the actual cashier, but I love having the ability to scan things myself, it is also much quicker because I usually have less items than most. They still have the employee there, there are still other cashiers so I’ve never seen it get too hectic where I go.
Especially those ones where you can grab a hand scanner to scan your items as you go, and use it to put everything into the terminal when paying.
I hate self checkout because they make the system frustrating as if they don’t trust you. Which they don’t. So they make it weigh items and it yells if you’re too slow putting the item in the bagging area.
If you don’t trust me to do it. Pay someone else to do it.
Problem is they save on the humans so you have to do their work too but you don’t see any price reduction or benefit for doing so, and that is on top of all the usability issues…
It gets better, they’ve converted the Walmart tech help for the self checkout into sales people for their master card now.
Ehm, it’s pretty much a success where I’m from. Sounds more like a personal opinion.
they back it up with companies rellying heavily on self chekout losing more money
Would be curious if that’s actually the case or if it’s just the next iteration of the “organized theft is causing billions in lost profit” from last year that was just BS.
Reality and the current narrative a C-level is pushing to get the result they want ain’t always all that similar.
Not sure about down vote(s), that’s what it says.
Although here’s my prediction: this is the start of yet another narrative to justify why food prices must go up (to satisfy investors and line pockets).
Start planting that seed now, “sorry folks, self check out is losing us money, we have to increase prices another 10%!”
I think self checkout is a good way for stores to get more customers through faster but the stores seem to think they are a replacement for human cashiers and they are not at all. They are nice to have in addition to human cashiers.
self checkout is a default for me
This seems to be an implementation issue. In my neighbourhood discounter, in Germany, there’s three self-checkouts and while they’re a bit small they also don’t do any of that weighing and whatnot bullshit: You scan your stuff, pay, done. The only thing they can’t do is apply best-before rebates.
There’s also always a manned till open (or at the very least, when things are slow, a worker hanging out in the vicinity). In practice if the queue is empty you go there, if you have lots of stuff you go there (because it’s bound to be faster as you can focus on packing while things get scanned), otherwise you have the choice to use self-checkout. Never had to stand in line for self-checkout, before that happens they open another manned till. What the self-checkouts do is keep small purchases away from the manned tills when they’re busy which is exactly what they’re good for. I
If they cannot apply best before rebates then the store needs to change the system of applying them. One of our local chains uses orange stickers with new barcodes for best before discounts so the self checkout scans and accepts the new barcode with a lower price.
I’m sure they will at some point but it just doesn’t seem to be a priority. It’s not like they closed the manned tills, and the total number of items is quite low. Basically only applies to the packaged meat section and then maybe two handful of items a day, if you don’t shop in the morning you’ll probably never see a sticker.
My guess is that with other items they run an ordinary rebate well before the best before to get rid of stale stock but meat spoils too fast for that.
My own bag. Hand scanner. Zip through the store while loading my bag. Easy check out. Hell no I don’t want to use the cashier line.
I don’t think that’s what the article is talking about. The cart and hand scanner are different.
I know entirely too many people who don’t use the hand scanner, and it’s crazy to me. It is by far the most efficient way to shop. I get irrationally angry when there are people in the self checkout line with a whole cart of groceries. This line is not for you. Get with the times.
Ha, as if.
Hasn’t it?
They’re always faster than the queue for the cashiers, and they work fine.
The only issue I’ve had recently is they stopped taking cash for some reason, and I pay in cash. But besides that, they’re fast and work great.
My favorite thing about some self checkouts is one big line for like 8 checkouts. You don’t have to gamble with who you get in line behind.
Failure?? It’s in every store in the world
I’ve never seen the level of problem described in the article. Self checkouts work fine around here (Massachusetts) and people seem to prefer them to the cashier checkouts.
Self checkout is just fine, as long as you have enough of them.
Even better are the handsets you can take around the shop and scan as you go, as nobody wants to really be doing an entire trolley at the self checkout.
Absolutely agree.
Here most self-checkouts are often called something like “express checkout” There is often a rule of max 15-20 items per customer (The rule is not enforced in any way, so you are just supposed to follow it for others sake)
Self checkout could be fine, the failure is capitalism/corporations in execution
Turns out even under socialism, I’d still rather have someone else scan and bag my things.
I love self checkout, I can steal from corporations with plausible deniability
You’re obligated to do it too. They used to pay baggers and it was a separate job from cashiers. Now you play at both, super part time, and with all the money they’re saving they graciously raise the price on everything.
