So this is pro-self checkout? Why would you be pro self checkout? Besides the extra time and effort for the customer to check out if they have more than a couple items, I recently read an article saying that even for the companies they haven’t worked out: besides the problems and delays they cause where they have to provide employee assistance anyway (“Unexpected item in bag”, etc), they’ve lost more to theft and are having to spend more money on adding more anti-theft tech, etc. One company they interviewed is phasing them out.
(edit after reading some comments) The article also talked about people getting in trouble for accidentally not getting something scanned.
They are HUGELY advantageous to shoplifters. My local grocery store did it for a few years and stopped all together.
Because the store is packed, they only have 2 cashiers on shift and I want to go home.
It’s almost as if they do underman the tills on purpose to force people to do the checkout work themselves for free …
Yeah, I wish they’d staff more tills too.
Self checkout is great for stealing!
It’s not stealing, I paid for that six-pack of bananas and two steak shaped bananas!
I just like the feeling of privacy. When the staff redirects customers to the cashiers because there’s less queue than at the self checkout, I pretend not to hear with my headphones on.
I only prefer self checkout when I’m buying rubbers and lube. Anything else I’d rather have the checkout person scan and bag for me.
If you have social anxiety, the checkout person conversation is one of the easiest interactions for you to practice those skills on. “Hello, here are my items, thank you” is about the gist of what’s necessary.
I don’t need practice. I can do it fine. I just do not want to.
Oh I have absolutely no social anxiety, I just prefer to keep what I’m buying to myself when I can, rubber or not.
Well I hope you use cash for all purchases and wear a mask that covers your face, otherwise everything you bought is recorded along with your identity in the store systems and potentially sold to 3rd parties like advertising companies, maybe to your health insurance company too.
Same. I’m one of the few people that prefers self checkout. Covid was a magical time for me while grocery shopping. No one awkwardly had to smile after eye contact, everyone gave space and avoided each other, just get in and get out without ever taking out my headphones. Self check out is always faster where I’m from too.
As a hermit forced to live and work in the modern world, COVID is the high I’ll never get again.
Ditto. Then, when we went back to “normal,” I felt like I had to pretend to hate it because everyone else hated it so much. For me, it felt like freedom and relief.
Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me that the mighty MBA class are actually just short-sighted, trend-hopping, avaricious shitbags?
Yeah, if you can’t pay people enough to notice and/or care if I steal from you, I get to steal from you. Them’s the rules.
“If you aren’t able to stop me, I get to rape you. Them’s the rules.”
That’s how fucking stupid you sound.
So, to be clear, are you saying that stealing from a corporation is equally as bad as raping someone?
I mean that’s literally how rape works. Not saying that’s a good thing, just that a law is mere words on a page if it’s not enforceable.
For me it’s not the time spent at the checkout that matters, it’s the time spent waiting at the checkout. Also over here cashiers don’t bag your items for you, so you have to do that anyway
Also also, they have these really handy hand scanners over here so I can already bag my items while I’m walking through the store, and then the only thing I have to do at self-checkout is hand in the scanner and pay for the groceries. That is genuinely a lot faster than normal cash register shenanigans.
Also over here cashiers don’t bag your items for you, so you have to do that anyway
I’m a lot faster at bagging when I’m not also scanning. The human cashier divides the labor to two people, which makes it faster.
That sounds amazing! Can I ask where that is?
Scandinavia?
I LOVE self-checkouts for small shopping. No human interaction bullshit. Just beep your stuff, whip out your card and go. Rarely do I encounter technical problems.
Why would you be pro self checkout? Besides the extra time and effort for the customer to check out if they have more than a couple items
In what alternate reality does self-checkout take more time and effort?
- If you go to a cashier then you have to wait in line. At my local supermarket there is one cashier vs. 16 self-checkout machines. Even if you go at an extremely busy time there is almost always a self-checkout machine available.
- With self-checkout you simply scan the items from your basket and put them in your bag. With the cashier you have put all your items on the conveyor belt, wait for them to be scanned, then put them in your bag.
- If you have more than a few items you simply grab a hand-scanner or just use the app on your phone and scan the items as you put them in your cart. Then you just go to a self-checkout machine and pay. No unloading the cart at checkout, you just pay and take your cart to your car.
the problems and delays they cause where they have to provide employee assistance anyway (“Unexpected item in bag”, etc)
What do you mean unexpected item in bag? The self checkout machine can’t look into my bag.
The article also talked about people getting in trouble for accidentally not getting something scanned.
Never seen that happen. You get random bag checks before you pay (so at that point it’s technically not theft). If you missed something, they simply re-scan all the items and you pay the correct amount, that’s all.
In the name of theft prevention and legal compliance, they do not give self checkout customers the same powers as actual cashier employees:
- Self checkout customers cannot verify their own age for age-restricted items.
- Self checkout customers cannot scan something and report the number of duplicates (e.g., scan a can and punch in that you’re buying 8 of them).
- In most stores, self checkout customers are policed by the system to make sure that each item is placed onto a scale that weighs everything, and stops the process if weights don’t match up.
- The ergonomics and flow of self checkout doesn’t allow for a conveyor belt style rapid scanning, because a self checkout station is a tighter space and tends to require bagging as you scan, instead of scanning and bagging separately and independently.
- The frequency of produce code entries means that customers tend to be much slower to enter foods that don’t have bar codes.
As a result, self checkout tends to be slower for customers who have more than 20 items. That might be offset if there’s a longer line for regular cashier, but if there’s no line the employee cashier is much faster.
Self checkout isn’t supposed to be for more than 10 or 15 items in most stores… obviously it would be less convenient in those cases.
Self checkout works fine for large amounts of items. You grab a portable scanner at the entrance and scan items as you put them in your cart. When you arrive at checkout you already scanned all your items and all you have to do is pay.
Unfortunately not an option for most stores where I live.
Self checkout customers cannot verify their own age for age-restricted items.
Age verification happens asynchronously and causes zero delay for anyone who doesn’t look like a teenager. The employee overseeing the self-checkout gets an alert on their tablet-thingie, they take one look at me and press approve. You can just keep scanning items while this happens. Usually the ‘your age may be checked’ alert disappears within seconds.
Self checkout customers cannot scan something and report the number of duplicates (e.g., scan a can and punch in that you’re buying 8 of them).
They can where I live.
In most stores, self checkout customers are policed by the system to make sure that each item is placed onto a scale that weighs everything, and stops the process if weights don’t match up.
I’ve never seen that, and I’m not aware of any supermarket chain in my country that does this.
The ergonomics and flow of self checkout doesn’t allow for a conveyor belt style rapid scanning, because a self checkout station is a tighter space and tends to require bagging as you scan, instead of scanning and bagging separately and independently.
The conveyor belt slows things down. You take an item out of your basket, scan it and put it in your bag in one go instead of it being two separate actions. You’re only handling each item once instead of twice. Besides, if you’re planning to get a lot of items you scan while shopping, not at checkout. You get a portable scanner, put it slot on your cart and just scan each item as you put it in your cart.
As a result, self checkout tends to be slower for customers who have more than 20 items.
If you scan while you add items to your cart it takes less than 10 seconds to check out, regardless of how many items you have
That might be offset if there’s a longer line for regular cashier, but if there’s no line the employee cashier is much faster.
My local supermarket has a grand total of 1 regular cashier, versus 16 self checkouts. If you go during a busy time you have to stand in line. Since the regular cashier is basically only used by people who don’t want to or can’t use self-checkout for some reason (that is: usually elderly people) this line doesn’t move very fast.
When it’s a quiet time of day there often isn’t a regular cashier at all and you have to ask the person overseeing the self-checkout who then has to call someone to help you out as they cannot leave the self-checkout isle unattended so you end up waiting for a cashier to arrive.
Self checkout is always faster, by an order of magnitude.
Your entire comment seems premised on the mistaken assumption that every self checkout system is implemented in the exact same way.
I use self checkout at certain stores, and avoid it at others.
And the store that this whole post is about, Wal-Mart, is definitely one of the stores I’ll avoid self checkout at. Their system sucks.
Your entire comment seems premised on the mistaken assumption that every self checkout system is implemented in the exact same way.
It basically is implemented the exact same way in every supermarket in my country.
So we’re having a conversation about the Wal-Mart style self checkouts, which you’ve not only never experienced, but apparently can’t even imagine.
To borrow from an earlier comment of yours, we’re in an “alternate reality,” so your conversation should be grounded in that understanding.
The system you describe sounds good, however, it’s nothing I’ve ever encountered. May I ask where you live?
The Netherlands.
Here is a video of the hand terminal in action (in Dutch, but you’ll get the gist of it)
self checkout cannot remove anti-theft devices.
I’ve never seen anti-theft devices on items in a supermarket.
on clothing and tech???
Clothing and tech in a supermarket?
near the letters and hygene products?
From my personal experience, scanning things by yourself instead of more experienced cashier is somewhat slower (maybe 20-40% for large amounts?) for reasons you provided. The thing is, you don’t have to replace one cashier with one self-checkout, instead you may put like 5 of them and assign one employee to supervise them and solve things that need intervention like verifying age. Also when not in use (low amount of customers) they probably cost tiny fraction of employee’s wage. Idk about thefts though.
Never understood that argument. I want to be in and out as quickly as possible. Self checkout makes that happen.
Management can fuck right the hell off. Self checkout is taking jobs away from people and getting us to work for free.
This says much about respect and social competence in this society when the first instinct is to mock and abuse someone with different priorities than yours.
The Boomers are right sometimes, like about keeping email.
keeping emai
Please explain
As opposed to switching to proprietary messaging services.
Yeah, this response is a rare boomer W.
I have 20k emails in my inbox
I will only clean it when I get complaints
You’re either the kind of person who reads their emails in real time and freaks if that little blue number ever reads “2” or you’re the kind of person who selects their entire inbox and marks it as read twice a decade.
My wife is the former. I am the latter. I get too much junk. I go through my inbox a few times a day, read what looks important, and ignore the rest. I have 2,174 unread emails in my inbox and a folder called “auto junk” with 5,116 in it.
I like keeping the unread count low, but I get so many junk notification emails at work I’ve given up on checking.
Unsubscribe and/or block is a good friend
Is there a way to delete all emails from a single address at once in Gmail? That would help a lot for me.
Yes, filter by sender, select all, delete
Pro tip: the checkbox at the top of the column only selects the first page worth (100 messages). You have to click that and then also click the “select all N messages?” link that appears.
See if your email provider lets you whitelist addresses. Every known sender goes to inbox, all the rest to trash. Great for keeping things tidy and helping to sniff out fake emails from eboy.
But I keep the emails and leave them unread…
Me too lol
I don’t get it. Why would you ask a customer if they want to use the self checkout lane?
It’s so nice of employees, to help the company from needing a certain amount of employees.
I had an employee direct me to self checkout at a fucking gas station were I was the only customer in the store. Shits pathetic.
They might as well say: “I hate my job, and I don’t want anyone else have it”
Because they are open instead of waiting in line for a cashier?
If the customer wanted to use the self checkout they’d be going to the self checkout …
They tend to move faster, so maybe it was full and now isn’t while they waited for a cashier.
Or maybe they just didn’t notice them either? People aren’t very perceptive, especially as they get older and start to lose their vision as well.
Edit, they also seem to think the cashier is obligated to chat with them forever, the people want to talk, cashiers just want a paycheck.
Everyone is aware of everything all the time. No need to provide potentially useful information. Nope.
I agree with the boomers on this one. I’m not in the habit of providing free labor to a corporation I don’t even work for.
Then pay for delivery and get it right to your door…
Cashiers and baggers are underpayed and forced to stand, if you want someone to chat to, you should pay extra. But you don’t want to pay more for groceries to pay people a living wage, the solution is to pay for delivery, sorry that still removes the ability to chat, but they aren’t obligated to, they only need to scan your groceries. Why do you think they need to do more?
These people being forced to stand all day in the USA is pure insanity looking from the outside.
Yup. There’s no reason they couldn’t have a stool.
I don’t think, nor did I say, they needed to do more. I’m also not particularly fond of small talk, so I dont typically chat with them. They’re paid to do a job, so why would I offer to do that job for free?
I agree! I was at a Walmart one time and some chick ran out right by us at a high speed. We had no idea what was going on but apparently she was stealing. The one worker said as they walked by us “you got all these people standing around doing nothing and they couldn’t stop her?” It was a smart ass comment. Did that employee really believe that I would risk my life for Walmart, of all places? I don’t work there, I’m not security, I’m not a police officer. Not my problem.
Boy, you’re not gonna be happy when you learn how food stores used to work. They’ve been offloading things labor used to do onto the customers for a century.
I actually prefer being able to choose my own produce and meats.
Edit: I definitely get suckered in by the impulse purchasing though.
Which makes it even worse
It’s easier to steal shit. So pay yourself with a nice cheap can of Pinot Gris.
Stealing is wrong.
If you see someone steal food, no you didn’t.
have fun waiting in line i guess? while i zip through the self checkout in a fraction of the time
also, do you live in jersey? if not, then you’re pumping your own gas, bless your heart
The lines are usually minimal (1 or 2 people) during the time of day I typically go shopping, and I drive an electric that is charged in my garage.
Do you also demand to have underpaid workers standing all day to bag your groceries?
If it was up to me, they wouldn’t be forced to stand all shift or be underpaid, but since I’m not in charge of shit I can’t change their company’s policies.
punchline in the title?..
ok boomer
They also don’t schedule enough employees to keep the lines running quickly, they only have 2-3 lanes open most of the time when it’s busy as having another line is 2x $13-15 an hour for a bagger and a cashier. This gets people to either go to self checkout or wait forever. Naturally most people go through self checkout, which they’ll probably use as an excuse to make more self checkouts.
(talking about the store I work at specifically, which isn’t a Walmart, but I assume Walmart does the same)I REFUSE to put how many bags I took if I have to self checkout. I also buy less. in many states now there is a bag fee. if I have to scan and bag my own shit, you’re eating that cost and for not paying an extra employee to be there to help. I also don’t frequent you as often.
Why would you need someone to bag your shit, lol?
That is nonexistent in my country except in the single Costco in the entire country and everyone feels pretty uncomfortable about it.
you’re eating that cost
Isn’t the bag fee usually a tax though? By not paying it you’re not screwing the store, you’re screwing whoever would get that tax (e.g. infrastructure, aid programs, etc)
I also don’t frequent you as often.
This might actually do something, if enough people are committed to it.
I don’t think I’ve seen a bagger in a decade, maybe it’s a regional thing?
Krogers still have baggers.
trader joes, cashier does it too
I usually see lines at the self checkouts too, and they move a lot slower.
“go to self checkout or wait forever.”
On the unfortunate days I have to stop at the store when myself and everyone else are getting off of work, I’ve seen the lines at self checkout as long or longer than the registers.
I’m use a self checkout if 1) there are empty checkouts and 2) I only have enough items that I can carry. Sure - then I’m getting in and out. But if I’m pushing a cart, I’m going to a cashier.
ok boomer
Would the RAtM reply be too insubordinate? 😛
I’ve never understood the people who seem to not get that some people actually don’t mind scanning their stuff and putting it in bags, and insist that that’s the line between what the customer does and the employee. They also used to carry your groceries to the car for you, and you can also get them to pick everything up, bag it and bring it to your car or house. It’s not like the checkout process is the special part that can’t change.
Yeah, they want to save money by having fewer people get more customers checked out faster. I don’t really care since the part I like, getting finished at the store, happens faster.
That’s not the actual animosity towards things like self checkout, most of the time. It’s a distaste for a large corporation to replace jobs with automation. Sure, it’s a menial job, but it was still an ability for someone to have a job if they needed one.
Labor shortages go up and down with time and what a lot of younger people don’t really understand was that sometimes the country would go years with it being hard to find any job. Even a bad one. The last 15 years have been pretty easy to find work, so a lot of the younger people can’t really know what it was like when you could go a long time just trying to find a job.
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so the store won’t need to pay for cashiers just standing around.
Aren’t walmart employees also required to stand all day? Kinda insane to me that they’re not allowed to just sit down
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That’s true for pretty much all corporate retail in the US.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Walmart cashier without a line. Doesn’t matter how many cashier lanes and self checkouts are open. Find it hard to belief they are ever able to just stand around.
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But in the end won’t it be the cashiers who will suffer/be blamed, instead of management hiring another one to help carry the load? I mean, even if you ask to speak to the manager, and wait for them, and say, “obviously you’ve understaffed this shift, so you need to open a register yourself and start ringing people up, you can start with me,” they are just going to blame the poor cashier who got stuck with Grandma’s coupons and check-writing or whatever. Or if they are decent, they’re already working a register, and it’s someone higher up who refuses to hire more staff, despite having a “ghost job offer” that sits out there to look like they’re hiring.
Have you ever rang a TV through as bulk onions?
I fucking love self check out!
They have some new AI thing watching the cameras that will make that a lot harder. Like, it wouldn’t let me scan the same item twice instead of scanning both identical items.
This is why i refuse to use self check out. If they wont trust me to do the job my way i wont do it for free.
For me it’s the damn scale under the bag, and how long the kiosk takes to register the weight of the last scanned item. Then the system “unlocks” and lets me scan another item. This system slows me down to the speed of the worst clerk in the store.
I haven’t had one actually do that in years. I think they all disabled that feature around here because it was so shitty.
I love self checkout. Conversation with strangers is difficult, slow and often not fun. Separating that aspect from checking out is the best customer service a lot of stores offer.
Some stores near me are removing or disabling self checkout. Apparently this better serves the customer. Can’t quite see how taking away options improves things, but …
I respect your preference, and for some people it could even be considered a “reasonable accommodation.”
But I prefer to have the person who does this all day whip through the scanning and bagging while I pay up. It may not be rocket surgery, but good cashiers have an efficiency of eye/brain/hand motion that I can’t match. Especially when there’s multiples of the same item, their machine trusts them to do it the efficient way rather than scanning and weighing each item. Or having the produce codes at their fingertips without stopping to read them. And since all machines have little quirks, it’s helpful to know exactly where to apply “percussive maintenance.”
I am comfortable speaking with strangers, so I always thank them and wish them a good day. And I don’t stand for entitled assholes giving them shit, either.
Having both options is best and should be part of ADA compliance.
That’s fair.
It doesn’t, it’s because people shoplift at self checkout all the time and the big retailers can’t figure out how to stop it. Almost every shop in my town forces you to do self checkout, they don’t even have cashiers most of the time. Last time I was at my local walmart they had like 6 self checkouts and 4 cashiers just standing there staring at everyone trying to find shoplifters. They still can’t find them though lol.
I dare say that the shoplifters aren’t even bothering going through the self checkout as a pretense.
Well, this can’t possibly be the case. The giant corporations who assuredly only have my best interests in mind tell me it’s what I want, not what they want.
Which is bizarre, because shrinkage due to theft at all major retail chains is at historic lows, but they keep complaining that they can’t make any money due to rampant shoplifting. Then you look at their profits for each fiscal year and wonder what their deal is if losses due to shoplifting have never been lower and profits have never been higher?
It’s an easy scapegoat to justify closing low performing stores. It essentially shifts the blame onto the community, rather than the greedy suits.
Yea the issue is the employer doing it to make more profit instead of spreading the more profit they make to the workers. There is nothing wrong with self check out. There is something wrong with people being paid shit when the company is sending dividends to stockholders instead.
The check out is the part where the actual sales transaction occurs. It really is materially different from those other services you mentioned.
Also,
I don’t really care since the part I like, getting finished at the store, happens faster.
That was true until they realized they could enshittify by closing all the regular check-outs and force everyone into it. Now it’s just as slow as full-service used to be.
check out is the part where the actual sales transaction occurs. It really is materially different
Like a vending machine? Or the gas station? Or the grocery pickup, where I pay online?
What makes a human being present for me giving my money to a machine different if it’s a grocery store as opposed to one of those?Sorry your experience sucks. Stores near me regularly have both open and the self checkout is invariably significantly faster. It’s not like I just didn’t notice that something I do several times a week actually sucks.
I’d rather check myself out than deal with other idiots. It’s a win for my sanity.
I personally prefer to use the self-checkout lane because I want my groceries bagged in a specific way (raw meat in one bag, cans/bottles in another, etc.). It’s infuriating when I line up my groceries in order on the conveyor and the bagger just stuffs them in the bags randomly anyway.
I miss HEB sometimes back from when I was a kid. They were trained to bag things “correctly” and was one of the few places that didn’t drive my dad insane. They banned plastic bags here shortly before Covid and I have used self checkout since with the nice big reusable ones that I can fill how I want. They would barely fill one bag and then demand another or start pulling out flimsy paper bags that will tear while trying to get my groceries up the stairs. I would bring 3 and it still ended up with me re-bagging it all and dealing with them saying I didn’t have enough bags.
barely fill one bag
Right? That’s another pet peeve of mine, the inefficiency. I bring up to 6 bags sometimes and somehow they manage to use all of them for a small haul of groceries, and randomly mixed too (bread smushed in with cans, raw meat mixed with hygiene products, etc.)
I get it, they’re not paid enough to be that meticulous; that’s why I’d rather do it myself.
Screw Walmart. During the storms here in NC, I went there to buy some relief supplies, and it was awesome to see the whole store getting picked apart by people buying supplies to donate. What was definitely not awesome was the only 3 checkout lanes open out of the total 12, because Walmart has a 3 per employee rule and they don’t want to assign enough workers for the checkout lanes, even during times of crisis like this.
What is a “3 per employee” rule?
Only 3 self checkout lanes should be open per employee. If you have a self checkout area with 12 terminals, there have to be 4 employees to keep them all open.
