Self Checkout hat serious drawbacks:
- the cashiers are not free to be transferred to more important work, they are fired. this is objectively bad.
- regardless if you are scanning the items when putting them into the cart, or you are scanning them at the checkout point - you are now doing the cashiers work, but you are not compensated for your work. the price you pay is the same. you are now an employee, but without being paid. this is objectively bad.
- when a scanning error happens, you are now responsible for it. the industry word for it is theft. you are a thief if your scan isn’t correct. the responsibility shifted away from a worker with (depending on locale, forget the US for a moment) insurance and workers rights, allowing for smaller mistakes. But the retailer isn’t picking up the responsibility, it just heaps it on the customer. As they did with the work. this is objectively bad.
- depending on the efficiency of this system, the retailer chains (not stores, the chains) are increasing profits. the workers and the customers don’t see a dime of that. this is objectively bad.
A store near me in germany has recently switched a number of rows to self checkout. Absolute chaos, nobody wants it, long rows on the few chashier points. I saw it exactly one time, told me what i think, they tried to sell me the convenience, i told them what i wrote here plus that they are located in a commercial area, not a mixed housing/commerce area. Nobody goes there to buy a handful of stuff. People came for “Hamsterkäufe” (german colloquial, hamstering essentially: buying large quantities for reserve), self checkout is not convenient. I will not visit there anymore, there are other stores who don’t do this crap.
I wonder if anyone has become injured during self checkout and attempted a workers compensation claim
One more - what about produce? Most produce I encounter does not have any way to scan it and I’m not going to sit there and look up a bunch of stuff. Good checkers know the produce codes by heart and makes that process so much more efficient.
I hear you, but scanning in store means I save a lot of time. Queues at UK supermarkets are really long. It also allows me to keep an eye on how much I’m spending and spot it when discounts are correctly registered. Unlike what you’re describing about how self scans are received there, they have been accepted a long time ago here.
If lower operating costs doesn’t lead to lower costs to the consumer, it’s not the fault of the self checkouts. Then it’s a lack of competition which would keep margins low. It’s your government at fault for not regulating the market properly.
In my neck of the woods grocery stores all operate with razor thin margins. So I’m fairly sure they’d cut prices if self checkout allows them to. There’s so many people chosing grocery stores primarily based on price.
Why would I care about doing the cashiers work? We don’t have baggers where I live. The work is essentially the same as bagging. In many cases I explicitly want to use self check out because it’s more convenient and saves me time. If I need three items I can scan them and put them in my bag and be out of the store before I’d get half way through the checkout line.
As for theft, in principle I see the problem. In practice I’ve never heard of anyone being charged for it around here.
If we can operate shops with less labor I think that’s just good. We should instead focus on creating other more meaningful jobs. Again, a government issue IMO. We need more teachers and nurses but we don’t pay them well enough.
reduction in labour requirements is good, scanning errors should have updated legislation so that the company is responsible for reasonable mistakes, capitalism incentivizes improvements in efficiency and rewards it with increased profits.
Why is it good for anyone else?
because, in theory, it will lead to a reduction in prices. In practice this requires a highly competitive market that would exist significantly more if the antitrust laws were enforced.
Until unions are strong and anti compeition has a spine, labour efficiency should not be championed.
unions are just workers forming a monopoly
Do you know what monopoly means?
a single supplier of a good or service, workers supply labour to those that want to purchase it.
AKA trickle down economics. Thats worked really well
did trickel down economics not promote the exact opposite of antitrust enforcement?
Im surprised how many people here hate self checkout. I am much faster at scanning and bagging my own items than most cashiers. I almost never get errors, and if I do I know what to do to clear them typically. I always look at self check first, and then human lines second. Plus, none if that “how’s your day? Want to apply for a store credit card?” talk from a bored looking cashier.
funny, I like it for the opposite reason. If I am buying a lot of groceries and want to pack them into my shopping trolley nicely, but there’s a line of 10 people behind me at the cash register. So I need to rush to put everything in as the cashier will just put more and more stuff on the conveyor to the point where other peoples groceries end up mixed with my stuff, because there’s only two lanes and the person right behind me only had 5 things, so the cashier is already handling customer 3 while I’m still packing.
With self checkout, I can decide the speed I want to pack at, make sure I don’t put fragile stuff at the bottom, can take it nice and relaxed. there’s 6 other terminals, so it doesn’t feel like I’m the one blocking the line. Just an overall less stressful experience.
I kinda like people
It is not the self checkout that bothers me but the occasional check after you are done scanning.
What? This is crazy.
Is this american?
Edit: reading the thread seems the uk is the only place that likes these. Huh
I’m surprised too, I live by self checkout. I use reusable bags, some of which are insulated ones, and pack things irregularly compared to the store. I’m careful so I’ve never had a problem with things breaking. I don’t like telling people what to do, especially strangers. Cashiers have repeatedly misunderstood what bags are which, use extra paper or plastic to pack my stuff, and sometimes have questions on what should be in the bag or what can be packed where. I avoid all of that just silently packing myself. I don’t blame the cashiers, I just do thinks in my preferred way and won’t be the asshole who “directs” them or something. I will switch stores before ditching self checkout edit: Should note my grocery runs are probably much smaller than average, which helps. I’m not using self checkout for a family of 4 or something
Hell yeah. They can’t take it away from me now. Idgaf what Walmart does, I haven’t given them a red cent in years. I’m all about WINCO & COSTCO. If you don’t have winco where you are, I’m sorry for you
“things have gotten so bad that it has made many people need to steal, so we can’t keep self checkouts open”
They’d rather change their operations than lobby for the poorest to have enough money and not have to steal.
They’d rather change their operations than lobby for the poorest to have enough money to not have to steal.
They’d rather change their operations than
lobby for the poorest topay their employees enough money to not have to steal.Although I fully agree with you, there is no gotcha here. They are greedy and want the most for themselves, that’s it.
I thought surely an organization of GROCERS would lobby vociferously for SNAP benefits (food stamps), at a time when onerous work requirements throw people off SNAP and overwhelm local food pantries.
Instead we get a bit of the pearlescent extraction of the meat cylinder via suction:
There’s a Walmart near me that I just never bother going to because like 80% of the non-grocery items are locked behind plexiglass. There are 4 self-checkouts and 2 employees assigned to just stand there watching people to make sure they don’t shoplift. They’ve made shopping so hostile that it barely makes sense for it to be a department store at all. Might as well just go back to the old model of telling the employee what you want and then they go get it for you.
I wanted to buy some razor blades and the poor teenager at the Walmart just couldn’t get his magnet key thingie to unlock the plastic lock on the hanger holding the packages. I waited patiently for like 5 minutes and was like look I’ll fix it. I pulled down on the packaging, tore the little cardboard piece and freed the blades in like one try.
I then still paid $40 for them like a good citizen and ignored how much I was getting ripped off.
All while being watched by a million store cameras, three people at the self checkout, the camera reflecting my own image in the self checkout machine, the greeter giving me a dirty look and the detectors at the door.
Its more absurd than airport security how pointless it all is.
Which is basically what they are doing with grocery pickup.
Never thought of it that way… But yes.
I’m here with your regular reminder that is you see someone stealing food, no you didn’t.
I don’t understand. I’ve never seen someone steal food in a grocery store. I’ve helped plenty of people get more food from a grocery store than what they thought they had in their cart though.
Also you didn’t see me at the grocery store and if you did it wasn’t me
Good news, new jobs opening to fill the cashier roles. But watch they will just implement a ticket system and checkout will take 3 hours.
Yeah but tickets cost money so they will make you sign in virtually on their app
How do I do that on my Linux phone?
Shhhhh don’t give them any ideas
Ticketmaster execs just perked up
You have to do 2 shots of crude oil to enter a lottery for a ticket to be able to pay for a ticket so you can checkout for groceries.
Pretty sure the self checkout isn’t where most people steal, why not just walk out the door with whatever you want?
You don’t steal all of it, you just miss the barcode on a couple items for the camera, so it looks innocent if somebody stops you.
Or you weigh more expensive fresh fruits & veggies as cheaper ones.
I had someone at target try to direct me to the self checkout… I politely declined with “I don’t work here”
If I’m doing the work, I should damn well get the employee discount.
Right? If they’re not paying someone to scan and bag my stuff, I should be getting that savings.
I literally don’t see the point of the employee. Just scan your stuff, pay, leave. You only have to scan what you choose to buy and take, not other people’s stuff.
Those are great entry-level jobs I’d rather not be eliminated… People > Computers in all ways.
My question is: Why have the employee there?
Why is them scanning my few items and pushing a button better than me doing it? We’re doing the exact same thing and it takes very little work from me. It seems to me like them being there is just adding work for the sake of a job. Pointless. It’s quicker and easier without them in my experience.
Why not add an additional person to the check-outs to hand me my bags so I don’t have to pick them up from the counter? We can keep adding work for the sake of jobs.
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I’d rather have one employee per register, not one employee managing 8 registers… Because when something goes wrong, you’re standing around with your thumb-up your ass waiting until someone comes to check your ID or fix whatever went wrong…
Besides, I like employing people, especially people who need the employment and don’t have access to careers that require an education. Everyone needs the ability to work, and part of that is making sure there are jobs…
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I’m beyond giving a fuck what’s best for corporations.
They better have some pretty specific definitions of “theft” vs “errors”. I think everyone has had the experience of missing something, wondering if you should go back and scan it or if that would get security called on you, etc.
Then you hear the stories like Walmart keeping a running tab and if you go over “$x” it’s grand theft and that’s when they arrest you.
It is the stores job and responsibility to make sure their stuff is all scanned, and rung up correctly. Not the consumer’s. You can’t just offload the labor costs and also shift the risk on the customer.
That’s why I hate self checkout, at least.
That’s actually a great point and something I wish I had in mind when I forgot to scan 4 items and the manager pointed out to me that’s it’s my responsibility to make sure everything is scanned.
I would be sad to lose my beloved self checkout :( I still want real people and full service lanes for bigger / more complicated purchases, but daily small purchases are much more relaxing self-serve.
Many likely believe self-checkout saves time compared to a cashier lane, but the opposite may be true.
Oh actual cashiers are faster no doubt, but they’re almost too fast. They’ll spin 15 items through in 3 seconds and I can’t check prices or bag fast enough. Once I’ve paid I still have a minute of bagging with next in line pushing me down and 2 minutes of reading the receipt prices left… in self check out I like being able to catch prices errors as they ring up and have less pressure bagging.
In my personal experience, especially in recent years, cashiers are often not even faster than self-checkout (though I’ve often experienced bagging pressure, lol). They’re either chatty extroverts who slow everything down because they’re socializing too much, or they’re new employees who don’t seem to know how to do their job yet (I assume this is prevalent due to high turnover, which is increasingly common).
As someone who finds interacting with register attendants painful, and doesn’t steal, this is unfortunate news.
As someone who also doesn’t enjoy interacting with register attendants, but does steal, I too find this to be unfortunate news.
I’m a introvert and hate dealing with people, but for some reason I don’t like using the self-checkout. I don’t know why. But anyway, I recommend moving to Finland. My interactions are as follows:
A very quick eye contact with a nod as a hello.
I pay, receive the change, say thank you.
I go away.
There is no small talk or push for registering for their bonus card systems, etc, here. You go in, do your thing, say thank you, go away. And saying anything is optional. I do it because I feel like that’s the least I can do for the poor person who has to deal with humans all day. But often I see people not even look at the checkout person, just stare at the register until it gives out a number, pay and bugger off.
That’s pretty much the interaction I expect in New England.
And, it’s better than waiting around for the self-checkout attendant to fix the error when the self-checkout kiosk doesn’t detect the reusable bag I brought correctly.
I know I’m lucky that I live in a country that has 17 people living in it, I don’t remember the last time I was in the checkout line for more than 5 minutes. Also, we have shops that are open until late at night and most of the hyper-markets are 24h. So I just go shopping at around 23:00 or later, when there is 2 people in the shop.
I’m sure you know the old joke:
How do you spot an extrovert Finn?
When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.
Indeed I do :)
Cool :)
A Swede is visiting his Finnish cousin. They are sitting in a boat, drinking beers and fishing. After the 8th beer, the Swede asks “so, hows the family?” And the Finn replies “did we come here to drink or to talk?”
Haha, thanks, I didn’t know that one. I would honestly love to visit Finland someday.
I can recommend it :P
Just skip Helsinki, 'tis a pointless place to spend any more time than necessary.
There is no small talk or push for registering for their bonus card systems, etc, here. You go in, do your thing, say thank you, go away
As it should be! The exaggerated fake politeness I’ve encountered in the US is fucking horrible and makes everything worse.
They don’t interact bro
That’s sometimes part of the awkwardness. My additional gripes are completely pedantic, but hear me out:
None of the grocery chains in my area offer bagging services, so I have to wait for the attendant to scan my items, bag them myself, and then shuffle back to the register to pay. None of this is a problem, except that the human attendant rarely ever scans the items in the order that makes sense to bag them. So there’s the weird dance of waiting, pushing items aside, etc.
If I’m doing self-check, I can scan and bag using my own patented autistic process ™ that is quick, makes sense, and doesn’t crush things, and I can do it in one shot.
This is why I unload them onto the belt in the order they must be bagged
I suppose that’s a solution, but you’re also doubling your responsibilities, and the price of the groceries still stays too damn high.
It doesn’t really feel like work, I just sort by weight+size in descending order
You can pay after they scan the first item. It won’t go through until they finish the transaction. So put stuff on conveyor. Wait for them to scan first item. Tap your card. Go pack up your bags while they’re scanning. When they’re done you’re done.
This seems highly location/payment system dependent. You can’t do it where I live, the CC terminals require the final amount to be sent to them before it will accept a card, if you scan your CC before the final amount is sent to the terminal it just gets ignored and a CC will still be requested once the cashier has sent the final amount to the terminal.
I hate it and won’t miss it. The workflow is brittle and the anti-theft measures throw too many false positives. Every third time I use it, it requires staff intervention. I’ll always go to a checker if I have the choice of doing so.
I work retail and I’ve just come to the conclusion that… the system is just never gonna work for how people do.
They’re about as simple as you can make it; scan from one side to the other, scanning one item at a time, into your bag; when bag is full remove it and begin a new bag; continue until all your items are scanned and press “Pay” and follow the prompts.
About 1 in 3 people struggle with this. They scanned from right to left instead of left to right, they pressed “pay” too early and can’t figure out how to go back, they picked up a bag and waved something in front of the scanner so it scanned twice accidentally, there is an “ERROR: Unknown Barcode” popup but they were re-arranging their bag and can’t remember the last item put through, their kid or spouse decided to “help” and now the machine’s confused…
We’ve had them for years and it’s not getting any better. There’s no fixing it. Sometimes customers are dumb, sure (a few I question whether they can even read), but also you can’t blame people for just acting like humans.
the left to right requirement is solved my the much smaller machines that only have bags on the right and nothing on the left, without a scale thst does anything except weigh produce, and with an employee to overlook less than a dozen machines
You’re describing the exact machines I work with.
And no, people still manage to scan the wrong direction. Kind of a lot. You would think the bag racks would be a dead giveaway. They are not.
does the scan direction matter? because I’ve gone through them scannin things from right to left (putting them into a backpack on the floor) and it works fine.
What country is this? They seem to becoming more prevalent here. (Canada) My observation is that people generally look at the cashier lines. If there’s too long a wait, they head for the self-checkout. Or, if they only have a few items, they head to the self-checkout.
Fuck the fucking idiots who ruined this
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Didn’t realize self checkouts were such a divisive topic, like wtf I’ll take that any day of the week over standing in line behind people who have seemingly never been to a supermarket before and their shit is still standing there all over the place while the cashier is already scanning my products. I get that it keeps someone employed but I think the answer to that is better welfare, not sticking to the old ways just so someone gets to do menial shit for a living.
At my grocery store I used to use the self checkout until they instituted a new policy where they would randomly check you and verify that the contents of the bag matched the receipt. Well fuck that, I ain’t gonna be treated like a criminal. I’m back to waiting in the line, let them do the work.
Is it a subscription based store, like a Costco?
If so, you signed up for the cart checks. The only thing you can do is not shop there.
If not, once you pay for it, it’s yours, and they have no legal right to touch it or check it unless you give them permission.
All you have to do is kindly say “no thank you” and keep walking. If they stop you, they’re violating other laws.
If they suspect you of theft, they can calls the cops. Otherwise, they must let you pass.The corpos and cops know the laws and, as such, your rights. It’s time we all know them, too, so we can put them (corpos and cops) all in their place on the ground.
I have thought about all of this at great length. The problem is that they can ban me from the store.
They can, but if they ban you for not allowing them to check, that’s illegal, and you can sue. If they ban you for theft, they need the cops to prove it.
Keep in mind, you must be kind when you refuse. A nice smile and kind “no thank you” is enough. If you’re combative, they can ban you for that. If they’re dicks that ban for the sake of banning, fuck em
Lol, the only place I’m letting them check my work is Costco. I don’t even take my receipt from the machine at other places, and have told employees on more than one occasion that they can go get my receipt from the machine or go check with LP and keep walking.
They can’t legally stop you, so I’m not playing their games.
I think a balance is good.
I worked at Target a long time ago as a Front End manager, before the days of self checkout. So I know how to cashier quickly and efficiently, and I get annoyed shopping at other places where the employees or customers are being slow.
I also appreciate just how volatile needs can be and how difficult it can be to staff. There have been books written on the subject, but in short for large stores with a lot of volume, customers do not usually trickle into checkout constantly as one might expect. Instead, they crash against the front of the store like waves. Personally when i’m shopping I try to identify these waves and time my checkout between them. At Target, we would often only have a couple of dedicated cahsiers, and would call the cart attendant or floor employees to help out for these waves. Self-checkout helps to smooth this out a lot and reduces all that walking back-and-forth.
I also hated all the upselling they made cashiers do. Target credit/debit cards and extended warranties on electronics. As an employee it was obnoxious and felt like we were annoying customers. As a customer, I was annoyed. One of my complaints about self-checkout today is how they ask you so many questions. My local grocery store self-checkout requires 5 button presses after i’m done scanning, which i think is bad design.
But also sometimes people need help. Some products are more complicated to buy. Some people are disable. Coupons are a plague upon society which machines are incapable of addressing. Some people just plain want a social experience, and it’s good to have human employees standing around in general. So I like the idea of having a mix.
And, of course, Universal Basic Income so we can stop asking “but what about jobs?” about every new innovation (but fuck AI though).
I agree, I have nothing against both being an option. In my bubble, everyone pretty much uses self checkout exclusively whenever available, except maybe for a large haul, so I was surprised to see how many in the comments actively dislike it.
That part about waves is interesting, it’s absolutely true and it happens all the time but I never really thought about it.
I’m honestly surprised anyone likes self checkout. It’s such a pain in the ass. Almost always have some sort of error that I need to wait to be rescued from.
Maybe it’s different where you are from, but where I am from human cashiers are way more efficient.
I like self checkout because i can generally get finished and out of the store sooner than if I go through the cashier. But some grocery checkouts do seem to often have hypersensitive scales and the worst nagging if you’re 2 ms slow to get your item into your bag, or God forbid you take a moment to rearrange things and mess up the calibration. I imagine they have a terrible urge to prevent people from stealing a grape.
Using a cashier to me is easier, and I like talking to the person ringing my stuff.
In North Italy almost all groceries stores offer
Self checkout: where you do your groceries and at the end you scan the item one by one
Advanced self checkout (you are registered to the store): you get a PDA and you scan and bag all the groceries while you roam the store. Then you scan a qr, you get the total, pay and go. No Id checks for alcol or anything (sometimes you get a random partial re-reading where you get an sales person coming and scanning 3 items at random from your bag to check if you scanned them, or a total re-read)
Normal slow cashier point
Advanced self checkout is something I would never give back. Even if I buy a lot of things, the quick payment process is so quick that nothing compares.
I can enter and leave a store in under 10 minutes buying a lot of stuff (note that I go there walking multiple time per week)
We have that system in Sweden as well. In my experience if you add up the total time lost fiddling with the scanner while browsing the store it’s usually much more than the time you save during checkout.
Honestly it scans, beep, next
It has a screen and you can click a product to remove it (you need to rescan it)
Other than a time where I could not rescan a product to delete it, it always worked
Also an important note: you can actual see your total on the PDA, and you can manually check prices one by one
You don’t have idea how many times they put a price and then you scan it and it’s different
(Once I brought home 4x 200g hamburgers for 4 cent )
Advanced checkout sounds awesome.
I was astounded the other day when I visited a town that had a nice busy grocery store. It was like what I imagine the 70’s were like. They had 20 lanes OPEN with cashiers quickly and efficiently ringing up items, much faster than I could, with baggers neatly and efficiently filling the bags. There were no waiting lines because everyone found a cashier lane to walk right up to as the last person was finishing up.
It was ten times faster than a self checkout.
I rarely see that anymore. Its usually one lone cashier and a bunch of people waiting for a self checkout machine.
I see that a lot in more expensive stores in more bougie areas.
I don’t see it much at all in my poor bitch ass stores.
For what we pay, every store could be this way, but the billionaires keep demanding more and more of the profits.
They’d only “need” to raise prices to keep their personal profit up. Fuck every single billionaire with a running chainsaw hard in the ass.
The 70s sucked for many reasons. However this was not one of them.
So is this a US specific thing or not? The article doesn’t really make that clear.
They could have saved so much time and money by just paying the cashiers a living wage.
But dehumanizing the workers seemed so much fun!
If you can’t develop the agency to acquire employment at a living wage or - here’s a fucky idear for ya - start your own (successful) business, then you deserve to succumb to entrapy, imo
Empathy, it is really becoming scarcer with each passing day.
I think you deserve the same thing.
I have more will than you’ll ever be!
The cool kids measure with empathy and kindness… not with dicks like you.
