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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.
Yup had these a few years ago in UK. Just not all shops do it.
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
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
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 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.
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.
Jeez you sure love working for free
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
I love self checkout, I can steal from corporations with plausible deniability
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.
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.
I don’t like to interact with people, but I also don’t like to work for free for the owner of the chain, so I take one for the comrades and interact with the cashier.
If you work for free, you’re bound to make mistakes. Sometimes a pound of fish might get rung up as a pound of oranges.
Grocery stores used to have you bring in a list of what you needed and the grocer picked it all out for you from behind the counter and packed it up. If you walk through a store and put your own groceries in a cart, you’re already doing free work for the owner of the store.
I wouldn’t change that, and I wouldn’t change self checkout. I prefer both. It’s not work if I’d rather do it.
(The first paragraph is a true story, but also a joke. Doing “work” is all relative.)
You do you, man.
This article really sounds like it describes an alternate reality to me. Interesting to see how many people in the comments seem to hate self checkouts but here in the UK they seem to work fine. Shops seem to have found the right balance. In the same shop you’ll have queues advancing rapidly at self checkouts and people run tills with shorter queues for customers who prefer the human interaction.
Maybe this is just a British thing? They’re very popular here in NZ
Though the BBC is obviously identified most with UK, it in fact has many international publications. This article focuses on the US, with only a reference to “Booths in the UK”, a very small supermarket group I have never heard of before.
Self checkout in the UK is commonplace and largely popular, though some of the general customer criticisms in the article are familiar to me as a regular user of them.
Same here in Switzerland, very well made and pretty efficient. But I really hate the fact that I’m basically working for the store.
They’re very popular here too, but a lot of older people really struggle with them, so they’re widely hated by boomers that want things to be like the 80’s again.
The technology is a bit shit, and more often than not there’s a lot of waiting around for someone to unblock you. Where it was probably a “failure” to many is in the initial promise of being able to get rid of employees and replace them with self-scan.
As a customer, I 💕 self checkout: the great divide between fast and slow
It surely is. My hobby is to look at a person entering self checkout to remember who they are, as I enter the human checkout. I’m usually bagged, and paid whilst that person on the self checkout is still working through their groceries. The professional human is SO much faster than the self checkout.
It’s not always the case, but in the vast majority of times it is, so I choose speed over doing it myself.
You can definitely tell some stores try to funnel people into self checkout by understaffing cashier positions sadly :( at the good ones I’m always at the cashier line as well
I really prefer self-checkout too. There was an initial year or two when the machines were kinda buggy and did that “unexpected item in bagging area” a lot, but you work around it: just never put your shopping bag on the scale. I scan fast and efficiently, and start bagging my stuff while the payment card is doing its thing. And when I bag my own stuff I can be sure the bread is going to be on top.
The only things I run into trouble with these days: 1. when the backend database doesn’t have the right info, like some produce type is entirely missing, or the only option is for organic(=more $ and you know darn well you’re not going to select that one). 2. Some stores don’t use the barcode on the fruit labels, and you scan the label by accident or out of habit because the other store does use those barcodes. Both situations need a clerk to clear them, and that’s 90% of the delay.
I wish I knew why Target is limiting to 10 items. It’s pretty annoying. I suspect that theft is what’s driving retailers away from it, rather than customers hating it.
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