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- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.zip
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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.
When self-checkouts were first rolled out, my friends and I loved them.
As twenty-something introverted nerds, it helped a lot when buying “embarrassing” things like condoms.
You didn’t have to have the checkout person giving you the stink-eye because they’re ultra religious or something.
Now, twenty-some years on, they’ve been abused to the point that some places they’re all that’s ever open, Target and Walmart seem to be the biggest offenders there. When there’s a line down three different aisles because the self-checked is so backed up, it’s defeated the purpose of creating “efficiency.”
However, I’ve noticed that about a lot of business practices lately. We’ve rounded the bend and they’re still doing things that aren’t actually producing efficiency anymore. Like staffing with nothing but a skeleton crew, so anytime someone calls out sick, everything falls apart because you’re short a person. Personal opinion, but if one person missing work wrecks everything, that’s not an efficient way to schedule people.
It’s proof that these MBA business school chucklefucks are just repeating the shit they tell each other ad nauseum, because when it comes to real-world results the results are abysmal and inefficient.
No it’s probably the method that lands the most euros into the shareholders pockets, regardless of the effects in other places. Dollarstore in the US is this but then at an extreme, John Oliver did a nice piece on it.
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The Walmart self checkout layout is generally just bad. Because they are paranoid about theft, it’s setup to make it easy for the worker monitoring to make sure nothing fishy is going on. However, that means that the customers that want to checkout often can’t see what’s open.
This creates lines as the machines aren’t fully utilized.
But further, it’s often the case that for whatever reason these machines need an employee to interact. With 10 machines running at full capacity, that means longer waits for everyone because 3 machines are waiting for an id badge scan.
Walmart can solve some of these problems with more employees but that cost money.
That’s just lean. If one employee is sick, everything falls apart. If the delivery of a specific part to the production line is delayed, everything stops.
It’s all very intentional, because it’s lean. Having buffers of any kind costs money, while making everything lean makes it cheaper to run your company. As usual, all of this is also reflected on profits and dividend income.
edit: splling and gremmar
And it pushes the cost of redundancy into the backs of the workers who didn’t call in sick, and have to work more hours or more tasks in a day or risk being responsible for an underperforming store.
If it actually hurt monthly profits, they wouldn’t do it. The fact that it may hurt longer term profits—through delays, employee retention, or quality control—either isn’t understood by the C suite, or they just don’t care.
My supermarket implemented these barcode scanner you can carry in the store so that you can scan and put your stuff in your grocery bags in your cart as you go, as well as some scales so that you can also scan those items paid by weight, which you can then scan at the self-checkout terminal. They also spot-check every 4th scanners and scan for random items in the cart to make sure you actually added them to your list as a theft-deterrent.
It’s way faster and less finicky than dealing with the scale that checks if you added the item you just scanned (and complains often that something’s wrong).
I hope this kind of system will stay, it’s really nice going to a self-checkout terminal and pay with your bags already filled.
when I worked at a grocery store for a bit (until a year go), we had that kind of system alongside the regular and self checkouts. It was interesting to see as I had never heard of it before, but it was very fast when it worked. That being said, almost nobody actually used it, and whenever the random checks happened it was almost always when someone had bought more items than usual (not sure if that actually triggers anything or if it was just coincidence) and the system for looking through everything was frustratingly slow for both me and the customers. I feel like the scanners are a great idea, but the theft-deterrent system for it could use a rethink, though Im not sure what exactly could best replace it
Meijers uses your own phone and their app as the scanner. GF loves it, but I find it’s more of a pain in the ass than it’s worth.
The only advantages I’ve seen are that you can use your own bags, and that nobody else uses it, so there are always 4 kiosks available to finalize your transaction.
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)_/¯
Yeah. I’m fine with using them at wal mart most of the time, but the grocery store where I load up at once every other week just went full send on self checkout and outside of being a pita dealing with so many bags and no place to set them without going into the cart with stuff you haven’t even scanned yet, some have a stupid conveyor belt after you scan and if you let like ten items get on it the damned machines locks you out until a worker comes by and unlocks it after the belt has been cleared off. Total piece of junk, but there’s now usually only 1 real person.
Sounds like low trust society issues to be honest. I only see those systems expanding in Switzerland, and they never use annoying scales or complain about unexpected items, because there aren’t even any sensors for that.
Here in Finland handheld scanners have been getting added to more shops, you grab one, scan and bag as you go, and at the end you return the scanner and pay it all at once.
One of the regional grocery stores in my part of the US has these (if you have an account). Before I did online ordering with curbside pickup, this was how I shopped. I didn’t understand why it wasn’t more popular. It made checking out so quick. Every twenty or so trips I’d be randomly “audited,” where some poor employee had to rifle through my bags to double check I wasn’t stealing anything.
The chance to be randomly audited would put me off from ever using it again. Specially when you know that randomly = you look brown or immigrant most of times.
At Giant, I’m pretty sure it’s decided by the system based on some algorithm, not the employee. The one time I was audited, we were in the store for a long time and had removed a few items from the cart after adding them.
The audit consisted of the employee scanning ten random items and confirming we had scanned them too.
When I was using food stamps/EBT, I was audited every time I used the hand scanner at Stop and Shop. Luckily, I don’t have to use food stamps anymore.
Well that’s some bull. The software knows what items are covered and which aren’t, so that’s just assuming folks needing help are thieves.
Yeah, luckily an Aldi opened down the street and I started shopping there. I don’t need food stamps now but with the way prices are going…
Ah, yes, yes. We’re not racist, it’s the system! It’s an algorithm! I never heard that one before. It’s also a sustym that randomly checks you at the airport.
It all depends on how truly random the system is. Each checkout (or ticket, or whatever) assigned a random number between 1 and 20, with 20 meaning audit? That’s non-discriminatory. But it’s also not tuned for the purpose of finding shoplifters (etc).
When you start adding criteria, they are often at least correlated with discrimination. Food stamps were mentioned elsewhere. Flight history to/from a list of hostile countries for airports. The list goes on. Technically not based on things like race, but it’s a paper-thin distinction in some cases.
How do you know there’s not someone looking at se purity cameras triggering random audits?
We used to have this (scan-as-you-shop) at Wegman’s in the northeast US, but at some point they decided to withdraw the program to re-think on it.
We have both happen, sometimes combined or scan with phone. I’ve seen some of the American systems, with sensors and weights and speakers (with some voice lines), those are creepy to me.
To be fair, anything that allows a Swiss person to avoid small talk will be overwhelming popular.
Am… am I swiss?
All of Lemmy is Swiss apparently
My guess is that we are half of the population on lemmy.
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Can confirm. The only deterrent is the potential for an random bag check by an employee but that never happened to me in years of using self checkout. Some shops have a worker over watching a dozen of stations to help out or just identify suspicious behavior but it’s very unintrusive.
I’ve been a checker and have monitored self-checkouts. We get no training or instructions to watch for suspicious behavior. It’s not the job of a checker / cashier to confront people for suspicious behavior, we don’t get paid enough to do so, or to even care.
So much chocolate weighed through the scales as “fresh veg potatoes”
Thanks for the clarification! My assumptions were wrong ^^ although I saw once a lady who tried to leave without paying, but the worker noticed and they spent a good 5 minutes convincing her to put in cash into the machine, which apparently she had but had to look for in her bag for a looong time.
Over here it’s a mix, some chains use the scales + sensors, some use simple scan machines. I absolutely hate the scale + sensors, some of them are almost completely unusable and the attendants have to keep running around fixing errors or resetting the ones where people just give up mid-cart and go to a manned checkout.
For sure, I use self checkout at at least 5 different places in China and they all work fantastically, including a Walmart.
I avoid places where self checkout isn’t available. And, it’s not just me. I stopped counting how many time the cashier is jobless and the self checkout area is full.
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
It’s faster until you need the human operator to keep coming over because the anti-theft sensors keep getting tripped up by false positive readings. Or you need to find some vegetable code that a normal cashier has memorized.
Self checkout is great when it’s done well, and total shit when poorly executed. And unfortunately, it’s not always just a matter of technology (which normally keeps improving); it’s often a matter of business model: sometimes customer convenience is really important, other times loss prevention (which creates frustration) is more important.
I’ve seen countless good self-checkout experiences backslide into crap experience because the business felt that a controlled client is more profitable than a convenienced client.
I hear this argument frequently but I’m curious how often does this happen to you where you need assistance? I’ve used SCO for as long as it’s been around and I could probably count on 1 hand missing some fingers where I needed help. Sure back in the day with the faulty scales that kept tripping it was rough but manageable. I don’t say any of this with malice I’m just curious if it’s you or if you speak of a lot of people. If it’s the later wouldn’t it just make sense that maybe all the people struggling may just have difficulties with technology as a whole and not just the SCO?
I truly mean no ill intent or hatred as I ask these types of questions as a way to learn and grasp the realities of others since no one person can know and see all.
In the USA at least, any time you buy alcohol, tobacco, or any number of other random things that the retailer decides to flag as requiring ID, then you’ll need assistance from a cashier. Random things include razor blades, compressed air, some herbal supplements, spray paint, butane torches, or any of dozens of other items. Any time you accidentally scan something twice, you’ll need a cashier’s assistance. Any time something rings up the wrong price or any time the UPC doesn’t scan, you’ll need a cashier’s assistance. Also, if you’re buying gift cards, you may need a cashier’s assistance.
Also, different stores have different machines and different machines work better than others. Many places have ridiculously sensitive machines that freeze up if so much as a fruit fly farts on it. Some places use “AI cameras” to detect theft, which basically the algorithm for that seems to be “If (customer scanned something OR customer didn’t scan something) then (theft, so freeze and call cashier for assistance)”.
So, the frequency is highly variable. For some stores, I can usually manage to get by with almost never needing assistance. For others, it’s practically every visit.
This is an important point. The execution of self-checkout seems to vary widely. I have only experienced poor executions like you described. I think a scan and go system sounds great and I would interested to see one tested at a shop in my area.
Fun fact: PLU’s (Product Lookup Units) are searchable on Google, though it’ll look like you’re just on your phone while at the register
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.
I don’t mind self checkout.
I mind that I need the one employee overseeing 12 checkouts every other scan because the system decides something is wonky. I mind that it now has AI that assures said single employee that I’m fleecing them for an $0.80 can of tomato sauce and I now have to wait for this person to dig through my 3 bags looking for this hoisted sauce.
If they’re so determined that every customer is lifting everything at checkout all the time - if only there was a way they could have an employee verify every item gets scanned, every time, perhaps by doing it themselves. Then we could wait in a line and feed our items to them so they can rest easy knowing everything was scanned appropriately. Oh, what science fiction Dreams I have.
This exactly.
Also trying to fit a bunch of awkward stuff off the scale and some of it is leaning against the edge and you have to balance everything just right cause heaven forbid it be off by a gram. Or it getting stuck because a bag doesn’t weigh enough to register.
Like if you don’t trust me fine but don’t half ass it. If I’m gonna steal something from a grocery store it’s gonna way more than a gram and sure as heck isn’t gonna be an empty plastic bag.
Or just RFID chip all the food items and I just walk out of the store and it charges me later based on what I walked out with. If no account exists automatic deployment of security personnel to catch the thief.
I went to one of Amazon’s spots in NYC, it was neat but it feels sus as hell just moseying out of the store 😂
Oh no, did your attempt to cut labor costs and make shoppers do more of the labor that checkers used to do end up increasing shrink?
Oh no, how awful for you that you aren’t able to properly afford more *checks notes… Stock Buybacks.
This is how I imagine retailers complaining about this.
Not only that, but the reduced shrink during Covid, tucked up to “normal” levels… but this was then presented as a 100pct increase compared to last year… and thus a huuuge increase.
I mean to be fair, everyone pulled that shit.
The jobs numbers tanking during COVID because everyone had to be let go or furloughed apparently has nothing to do with Biden “bringing America more jobs faster than any previous President” bullshit.
Nah dude, the jobs that left just came back, you didn’t do shit to make that happen, Biden.
As a Democrat voter, makes me sick how hard they are back to pushing “The economy is doing great, you whiners need to just fucking vote for us already, all right!” while holding Trump and Fascism over our heads like a veritable Sword of Damocles. They don’t feel the need to do more because it’s easier to sit on their haunches and yell “But if you don’t vote for us, Trump will turn the US into a fascist state” as if that isn’t an implicit admission that they won’t do anything to stop Trump if he wins (even illegitimately!!!) and will let him run roughshod over US citizens as punishment for not voting Democrat sufficiently enough.
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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.
This is a very good point- consider all of the friction points that make self-checkout slow and cumbersome. How many of them apply to manned checkouts?
The weight thing is absolutely the most frustrating, and I would put money that it’s not an effective theft deterrent.
I don’t know if it’s intentional, but the places around me seem to have largely solved the problem of cashiers being faster, by putting the slowest people on earth as cashiers…
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.
It’s pretty great. Though I’m sure it’s built into the price (assuming they’re talking about Uniqlo).
On the other hand, being able to walk into the supermarket, fill a trolly, then walk through an archway to get rung up…That would be pretty amazing.
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.
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.
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
Depending on the system you have, some of them have a divider bar halfway down for that exact purpose.
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.
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 almost exclusivity self-checkout for groceries, and it had drastically sped up my checkout time as most people in my area opt to use traditional checkout and the stores are still keeping lots of lanes open (just closing the express lanes). The last 3 times I’ve used a non-self checkout, each time I was double charged for items or didn’t have reduced prices applied and didn’t notice because I was bagging.
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%!”
self checkout is a default for me
Usually I quite like self check
Except at ALDI.
Before they put in self check the cashiers sped through transactions at lightning speed. Now they’ve cut the number of cashiers and people sit at SCO slowly scanning and bagging everything…
It’s ALDI bruh scan that shit and go to the bagging counter.
Oh shit, I just started going to Aldi and sounds like I am one of the idiots doing it wrong. The store I am going to seems to be setup same as a typical SCO though. I don’t know that I have noticed a bagging counter. Will be looking next trip I guess.
Ah I’m mostly grumbling anyways. The SCOs look the same as anywhere else had I begun shopping at Aldi after SCOs got there I probably wouldn’t do anything different either.
But famously the cashiers at Aldi were super fast. They don’t bag anything. They just toss it into your cart. They’d often have a spare cart or two and if you had a lot of groceries they’d put it into a new cart for you instead of waiting for yours to be empty. (And also is one of very few places in the US where they let cashiers sit down).
People who would attempt to bag their groceries while at the cashier (unless they only had a few things and got it done very quick) would attract ire from both the cashier and other customers for holding things up since they’d usually be done scanning before you’d get done bagging. Check this meme: https://x.com/ladbible/status/1270736248546758656 and the replies to it calling them out for bagging at checkout.
After you checkout, you were meant to go to the bagging counter and bag your stuff (in your own bags or some people use empty display boxes.) The bagging counter is on the front wall of the store right by the exit (see picture)
But if you notice next time, all the store brand stuff (90% of the stuff there) has unusually large and tall barcodes usually on multiple sides to help the cashiers be as fast as they are.
Also the SCOs at ALDI are some of the quickest I’ve EVER used in terms of scanning items. It doesn’t need any delay between scans. If I only have one layer of stuff in my cart I usually just scan it while it’s still in the cart using the hand scanner and can be gone in under two minutes.
They just toss it into your cart.
That’s a US thing. In Germany it’s common practice everywhere that the cashier does the scanning, you do the putting in your cart, or wherever, but if “wherever” is slower than a cart you’ll get death stares from other customers. They probably introduced that to deal with Americans who’d otherwise just stand there twiddling their thumbs.
Also ALDI cashiers have gotten slow: They introduced scanners very late, before that cashiers would rummage through the belt with one hand and enter four-digit codes with another. It was possible to keep up with fresh cashiers but the seasoned ones were absolute speed-hogs – not that they’d mind you being slower, they just were done quickly because with practice, you get blazing fast at code entering.
Hey that’s pretty cool. I did see the unbagging area when picking up few items yesterday. Going to give it a shot next time I go to Aldi. It’s not a busy store and I always see an empty register, but maybe that’s because everyone else is doing their shit right.
I did notice the bigger bar codes and that the Aldi registers scanned real well but somehow didn’t put the two things together.
Pro tip: Use (sturdy) boxes instead of bags.
Set them in the completed area of SCO before starting the process, or in the empty cart before the cashier starts. That way it gets scanned and goes straight into the box. The box then makes it easy to put into your car, and into your home.
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.
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.
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
It is 100% implementation. In other countries there’s either a staff member watching over all the self checkouts to make everything go smoothly, or a kind of electronic gate that only let’s you leave after scanning a receipt. Usually the scanners are much more reliable and theres a usable UI. Plus a modicum of trust. Also thise hand scanners you can carry around the shop so you don’t have to do it at the end (although I think if seen some of them around now).
In the UK there’s usually the weight detection mechanic that slows things down 10x and no interactivity with the machine other than it loudly telling you you’re doing it wrong. You often need to ask for help anyway.
If it was a quick and easy experience the scheme wouldn’t fail.
There’s no extra gate or dedicated staff member in my store only whoever’s at the till and if the self-checkout is busy they’re too busy to watch them.
What I did notice though is that they now put anti-theft tags on more stuff, e.g. the ones on big packages of sausages are new. But it’s still the same open beep gate at the end, which I actually triggered exactly once and that was when using the manned checkout, they’re older and cashiers need to deactivate the tags manually (and they missed my coffee), the self-checkout ones apparently do it reliably when you’re scanning the item.
Over time I think that’s probably where this is heading. The store still uses those very old EM fuses/amplifiers as anti-theft tags and of course ordinary barcodes, at some point the larger industry is going to switch to RFID for everything and every item will know whether it’s been paid for.
My grocery store recently added these locks on the cart wheels, I’m not really sure how they work since i’ve only ran into them once so far but it went off as I was going through the detectors at the door and locked up the wheels so it wouldn’t roll. Idk what triggered it because I went through the manned checkout and they scanned everything. The girl at the self checkouts just ran over and unlocked it without even checking anything. It was pretty embarrassing though because it was busy and I was blocking the exit door with a bunch of people behind me for like 30 seconds because of that.
At least around here, the wheel locks are activated by a big antenna loop around (usually) the parking lot, to prevent them from being rolled off by homeless people. Unfortunately they also fail “safe”, so when the locking gizmo’s batteries run dry they lock the wheels. You may have just been the lucky winner of it locking itself at coincidentally the worst moment! Don’t you feel special!
There’s no extra gate or dedicated staff member in my store only whoever’s at the till and if the self-checkout is busy they’re too busy to watch them.
The difference is other countries have much larger stores… probably because we have a more car centric culture.
My local store has about 40 checkouts - half of them self checkout. And there’s a competing store literally door (in the same building, with ain internal wall separating them), which sells all the same stuff and is the same size. In the middle of the day about half the checkouts are open and in the evenings all of them are open.
We do have smaller stores like yours, but almost nobody shops at those and even at peak hour a single checkout is enough.
Sales so slow at my local small store the checkout staff will literally check your bread for mould when they scan the barcode… They’re more expensive and the food is worse.
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.
Failure?? It’s in every store in the world
In my country, it’s a huge success. People love it at the point that even Aldi and Lidl implemented the system.
But, the huge difference with the US is cultural. People coming here from abroad have a hard time to make local friends. It can take up to 10 years to make one.
My guess is that people love the lack of social contact more than self checkout itself.
If you are talking about Germany, yes. I recently (3 years) moved to Germany and I love the tech. I can avoid having contact with the rude people that usually work at the tills.
If the people at the till are rude your problem is probably that you’re living in Berlin.
You nailed it!
In the US people working the tills are usually TOO nice and you don’t want to make smalltalk with them. Only in NYC have I encountered rude till people, and even there, most are pretty pleasant.
Yes in the US honestly I feel anxiety thinking about the cashier being too nice and not responding appropriately friendly enough haha, there is such a pressure for good service for any retail worker that I feel like it’s somewhat rare for them to be straight up ‘rude’, at most they will be quiet. Like you mention though it does vary a lot region to region from what I’ve seen.
it’s usually better implemented here. i regularly went to a real (the supermarket chain) once, they had one employee manning 4 self checkout machines and one of them took cash. they would open them during lunch rushhour, so all of the people who just wanted a sandwich were out of there within 30 seconds. worked awesome.
It’s south where people are even less open to contact.
To prove your point, will you be my friend?
