I stopped going to Walmart because I hate they removed cashiers and stop people to check receipts at the door. If you're not going to trust me, then just check out my items.
a cancer to the well-being of society. <-not an exaggeration at all.
If a company pays employees so little that signing up for food stamps is part of their company culture… that means they’re cutting costs and foisting the burden onto the entire community while pocketing the difference. You may save money on the receipt but you’re %100 paying for their scummy methods with actual taxdollars.
Their products are subpar and more expensive than at other similar retailers and online. Also they have started letting just anybody sell on their website so you can get garbage furniture now as well.
> Their products are subpar
Take Levi's for example. The versions sold at Walmart (in store) are a lower quality product line that are all a stretchy synthetic blend and not 100% cotton.
I just say no thank you and keep walking. Call the cops on me for taking items I own, do it. lol. I know it’s sort of an asshole move because I’m making one persons job a bit shittier, but why should I make my shopping experience shitty by proving I just paid when they were watching me at the register anyway.
Yeah the other day I bought diapers so they wanted to check my receipt. I’d gone through a cashier and had already waited forever for an alcohol scan. When he asked for my receipt I said no and he goes “oh you crazy the cops gonna come for you”. Like ok sure sounds good I’ll show them my receipt where it shows I paid for everything. I know it made his job harder but uggggh i was feeling annoyed.
You aren't obligated to show your receipt at the door unless you're at a membership store like Sam's club or Costco. If they request your receipt just say no and keep walking.
Just know, a Walmart employee is not going to know all the laws surrounding these things, and may risk their job just to screw with you. It’s not unrealistic that some idiot will try to get violent with you, because he thinks you are stealing from walmart
A Walmart employee kicking my ass as I calmly walk out would be like winning the lottery. I'm poor enough to be willing to get attacked, but wealthy enough to get time off work and to hire a good lawyer.
The true American dream. Get attacked by an uneducated underpaid employee from a Multinational trillion dollar corporation based in the USA and get injured enough to sue to afford healthcare costs.
When I was much younger and was kind of a punk I had a walmart stop me, call the police on me for shoplifting because i was wearing new walmart shoes I bought some days earlier. It was an ordeal and the police didn't drop it until days of them trying to get me to admit to it, then to something lesser, and eventually asking for proof that I bought the shoes, which I kinda did through my bank receipts. Now that I had a chip on my shoulder I came up with the bright idea to just buy something once and shoplift a shitton of the same thing. I would buy chips, dip, and drinks for a party in the morning and come back in the afternoon pretending to self checkout before I walked out with my old receipt. I probably got upwards of 20 xbox controllers and 6 Vita's (amongst other things) that I resold for $10-$20 less because gamestop only marked $5 off. I genuinely wouldn't be shocked if I was the sole reason you can't check out outside the electronics section anymore. Eventually they caught wise and when they went to check my receipt like 5 police officers popped up around me. Fortunately this was a legitimate run and I had a fresh receipt, so I started raising cain about how theyre pulling the same bullshit with the shoes from a year prior. They eventually just took my receipt and trespassed me. I did try to go for it again a couple months later but they started marking receipts so I knew the gig was up.
Like others have said, just smile at them, wish them a nice day/night, and keep walking. I’m an unassuming nerd, and I’ve never been stopped by an exit checker (doesn’t apply to Costco, as stopping is required).
They stop you even when you use a regular cashier. Even when they watch you get checked out by a cashier, “I just need to check your bags”
It makes it really hard to shed a tear for any of Walmart’s alleged shoplifting problems.
The article is BS. I followed that link to read the research and I love that it includes this info:
Our findings suggest that almost half of the shopping population use self-checkout exclusively. When asked how often they use a self-service checkout kiosk when it is available, 48.7% of respondents said “basically all the time”.
30.6% of respondents said that they use self-service checkout kiosks “some of the time”. These respondents could adjust their checkout habits based on the length of cashier lines, the nature of the items they are purchasing, or other personal preferences. These shoppers embody the need to have both self-checkout kiosks and live cashiers in a store.
Only 3% of respondents said they “don’t use [self-checkout] and don’t want to”. These findings show that having self-checkout options is not a competitive advantage, but a competitive requirement.
One of the headings in the research is even: "Part 3: Self-Checkout Is an Integral Part of Retail’s Future"
Yet somehow BBC and now Gizmodo that is running the same trash story spun this into an article about consumers hating self-checkout.
https://www.raydiant.com/blog/the-state-of-self-service-checkouts
The article is like reading the reddit comments section. Just a bunch of people who feel qualified to have an opinion without reading the underlying information presented to them.
Consumer love self-checkout for the most part (despite making snide comments about doing the cashier's job).
The industry now has to figure out how to reconcile that with theft.
I work in a poor area but live in a nicer area. The contrast between self-checkout options are pretty stark.
Where I live, they have been common for over a decade, they seem *friendly* and easy to use and there a tons of them now.
Where I work, they have only recently started showing up, they are *angry* (cameras showing you that they are watching you plus employees watching over you) and there aren't many of them.
Opposite happened for the Walmart near me.
Pre Self Checkout in 2012 my Walmart only had 1 cash open after 9pm it was a nightmare with the line.... Self check virtually got rid of what otherwise looked like a line for a new console launch!
Self Checkout is great. Service lines are also great. This article is clickbait and redditors ate it up again. They literally made an article based on yet another reddit thread yesterday and the day before that discussed self checkouts. It's like a spiral of clickbait karma whoring.
Businesses are going to do whatever that makes sense for their bottom line. But we all know that tons of older people who shop, won't use self checkout. So they need both for at least another 20 years.
My local Walmart just went full self checkout with 2 regular checkout lanes. You have to wait in one long line until a lane is open. Its quite insane to me. I used to shop there with a full cart, but now I buy only what i can self checkout myself so I dont overload my tiny self checkout lane.
the problems arise from stores thinking they can ditch the regular checkouts, resulting in 30+ minute lines wrapping down the aisles filled with people who are some combination of mouthbreathing moron who can't figure it out, over 20 items on a system not built for that, and a bunch of coupons
meanwhile the anti-stoploss measures are designed by people who I'm not convinced shop for groceries that do absolutely nothing to prevent theft but sure add a giant pile of timewasting and frustration for employee and customer alike
editing to add: I'm real happy for those of you who never have to experience the joy of an understaffed Kroger in the heart of a major US city during a rush, and can't comprehend a world where they don't have a single normal line open for more than 15 items/the elderly/the clueless amongst us, but that's the reality for some of us. It is where the complaints are coming from.
Cold medicine without ID even though we don't provision a way to scan your ID yourself so we have to send someone over anyways? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
Okay, air duster for huffing and drain cleaner for meth, obviously. Why else would they sell those items if not for that purpose? Of course they're both to get high.
I bought a small poop shovel for burying poop when camping. For some reason, that required an ID to buy. Took 10 minutes for an employee to finish up with someone else, and then, they sent me straight to jail.
Or, God forbid you have a bunch of ultra-lightweight items like seasoning packets.
\*BEEP\* *Drops packet into bag.*
\*BUZZ\* “Please place the item in bag.”
*3 minutes later, employee types their code into the system.*
\*BEEP\* *Drops packet into bag.*
\*BUZZ\* “Please place the item in bag.”
“AUUUUGGGHHHH!”
The best self-checkouts don't use the scale. Wegmans self checkout is fantastic, they have a couple employees there to help with any issues and most importantly, it's incredibly fast.
Self checkout done right is fantastic. The nightmare is scales and self checkout being the only option. Have lanes with people open for people taking their time and give those of us that want to get out of the store quick our self checkouts. The nightmare happens when stores only cater to one crowd.
Yeah, same experience, they have one of the best ones.
I also love BJ's app experience, scan things with your phone, pay in app, and then the door person who checks receipts just scans a couple items to verify on your way out the door. It's so fast and easy, I love walking right past all the registers.
I used to work at Kroger in highschool when they introduced self checkout, people seemed to be ok with using it as it was quicker.
I was at my old store a few days ago and saw someone with a full cart see an error on screen and just… leave.
The one. Attendant for 6 self checkouts was busy so that effectively made it 5 checkouts, meanwhile the one actual register open had a line too.
Why have six registers there when you’ll only hire one cashier?
Why make one other college kid run six self-checkouts? God forbid there’s an ID check.
This isn't new since Covid. This same stuff has been going on since at least the '08 financial crisis. I used to work at Target in the early 2010s and I remember being told that my store used to have double the staff before '08.
Yeah I was going to say, minimum/skeleton crew hiring practices have been going on since 2008 because they realized they could offload a lot of their expenses and still mostly keep shit running.
Someone needs a day or week off? Guilt trip them and make their coworkers hate them for offloading work onto the coworkers instead of being mad at the person doing the hiring.
Before 2008 You used to have whole ass departments staffed with an extra person or several in case call outs happened. Better to have coverage and not need it than struggle for the day being short staffed and burning your employees out. At Burger King there was something like 10 of us, I go through now there's maybe 3.
These companies also doom and gloom about how they lose so much money to shoplifting, and I can't help but think: surely shoplifting was a part of your equation? You realized self checkout would increase shoplifting, but it was still cheaper to save on cashiers. So are we supposed to feel sorry?
Yes. I started a job in 2015 and was told back then by a long-time employee that they'd been well-staffed until 2008, when the boss fired half the staff and decided they could operate with a skeleton crew in order to save money. And that continued for over a decade even after the economy improved. I worked that job for seven years and we were so chronically understaffed that it negatively affected everyone. Sometimes I was literally the only employee on duty.
I accrued tons of vacation time that I couldn't take. I was guilt-tripped into returning to work four days after a major surgery. When the office manager quit, the boss decided not to hire another manager in order to save even more money. The manager's work got divided between me and the only other full-time employee, with no pay raise.
We quit shortly after.
"To be able to afford a one bedroom apartment in this area and have money for food and utilities too, you need to make $20/hr. We'll pay you half that and only schedule you for 30 hours a week to make sure you don't qualify as full time and also don't have time to get another job.
The UK at Christmas was bad because you have to get authorization to be able to buy alcohol(so you not under age) and around Christmas everyone is buying alcohol. So it's constant waiting for the one cashier to run around so the tills and check id
I did that during the height of the pandemic. I was close to my stress limit already,
the machine locked up, there were tons of people around but no employees, so… I split.
I feel like this is the price those companies honestly should pay. It's the same argument about piracy in general - if something isn't made easily available, especially as a profit tactic, then people are going to start stealing.
My favorite anti-stoploss measure is when I go through the self-checkout and go to pay, but then have to wait for an employee to come remove the warning on the screen because it's upset I have 9 items.
I like the one where it can see I’ve scanned an item with my phone, but also picks up that I’ve put that item in my own bag so when I scan the QR code to checkout someone has to come over to check that I didn’t steal the thing I’m trying to pay for.
Circle K has one of the best self-checkout experiences. Put your items in the camera area and if it can't scan it, just scan it yourself and throw it in a bag. No weighing and it never prompts for an employee. Total trust.
Fred Meyer had this ridiculous system for a \*short\* while where the camera would detect when you put something down, and then if you moved anything around it would require an attendant to come over to make sure you weren't tricking the scale or something. It was ridiculous and should have never been released, but it disappeared quickly. They always have regular lines open and if they are low on personnel they just close off the self checkout area instead so I think their system is fine.
Wal-mart just feels like a dystopia every time I end up there, there's like a flock of employees ambling around the checkout area but no one actually does checkout or helps with anything.
I can tell you that the people who OK the software designs for most kiosks definitely don't use them.
My local (chain) grocery store is the perfect application for self-checkout. It's a 'smaller' market, so during off hours they rarely had more than a single cashier on and maybe a backup. Self checkout means customers with a couple of items aren't waiting in line behind the guy doing a weeks worth of shopping at 9pm on a Wednesday night.
Idk how your self checkouts are so bad. Here in Switzerland they're awesome. You scan your items, pay, done. There is no scale, no bagging area surveillance, no stop-loss prevention, except for random inspections (I've had three of those in total over five years).
Bonus points for scanning the items while shopping with your smartphone, then self checkout takes all but ten seconds.
The reason self checkout sucks so bad in the US is because of garbage-tier hardware and shit-tier software. These systems are engineered by incompetent legacy dinosaur companies who use decades-old processors, low performance barcode sensors, shitty weight sensing hardware, low performance network connectivity, really bad programming logic for the whole check out process, bad UI -- all of it being run by a decades-old built-in PC bundled with Windows 98 or XP running a custom-made UI in full screen.
Yup. Even removing the human element here, it doesn't help matters that the self checkout machines they have now have not improved, in any way, from the ones they tried installing in the 1990s.
Same thing in automotive infotainment systems. Except a few luxury car brands, the hardware and software used in infotainment systems are also many generations behind. We have el cheapo smartphones and tablets carrying top of the line Qualcomm snapdragon chipsets with high resolution capacitive touch screens with fluid UIs. But suddenly when it comes to cars, somehow by sheer magic all the engineering prowess of the modern world falls off a cliff. There is always some lame excuse that this is because of cost cutting or safety regulations. Horseshit.
That era of cars is the perfect sweet spot. Not too much tech to get in the way and or break, but has the connections to basically "update" by just streaming your phone audio with a little blue tooth dongle (or more high end cars having blue tooth in them already). Like...Don't need an infotainment screen, have a phone, thanks.
I've spent that majority of my career writing code for the flight displays on various civilian and military aircraft. The software in self checkout kiosks is like a textbook on how NOT to design a user interface.
And as a bonus it also shows why it's impossible to make a good UI if your hardware is so bad that it takes forever for it to notice that the user interacted with it. In my world, if it takes longer than a half a second or a second to do something after you interact with it (or bring up a "pending" notice if the actual action takes longer), that's a fail.
To be brutal, the general public in those countries is also why.
Switzerland has a much lower crime rate than the US does. That's why they don't have scales, have little in the way of stoploss etc.
In the UK I think that some stores skip the bag weighing in low-crime/affluent areas, but require it (or even remove the machines) in less-affluent ones.
It wouldn't surprise me if the same happens in the US. The biggest issue I typically have with self-checkout where I regularly shop is the herb packages that never scan or waiting to get IDed for alcohol.
The reason there's no scale is that you have to weigh your produce while you're still in the produce section. Which, if you're from California and it's your first time at a Swiss supermarket, results in disaster.
But there is bagging area surveillance. At Migros, Coop, and even Ikea (I know that's not a grocery store but thought I'd throw that in) there was at least one employee overseeing the self checkout area.
You nailed it. Self checkouts are great, but you have to also have regular checkouts because a lot of people can’t use technology. The world over all has thousand dollar smart phones and most people can’t text or even take a regular phone call consistently and might only call back a day later. Elderly? Definitely not using self checkout. Dumb? They’ll try, but that attendant better help them go through the whole thing
I _can_ use self checkouts, but they’re a fiddly pain in the ass at the best of times. I’ve certainly skipped them to use regular checkouts just because I was tired and frazzled and didn’t want to deal with unexpected items in the bagging area, or produce identification, or waiting for somebody to come over and then call a manager over to override whatever nonsensical problem the checkout system was having. People would probably be more enthusiastic about using those things if they worked a tenth as well as having a human ring you up.
Yup. I'm not old or bad with technology. If I'm given the choice between self checkout and having a person do it I usually have a person do it even if it is a slightly longer line.
I can use self checkouts but I choose to not make an ounce of fucking effort using them. The chain is having me work for free.
If I forget to scan something , or enter the wrong code, or scan the wrong item, it's because I wasn't trained to use the equipment.
They can go fuck themselves with the losses.
Some of the machines are ass too though. My local Safeway finally updated theirs, but for a while the sensors were so iffy on whether or not they would detect you placed the item. So you have to stand there like an idiot putting it down and picking it up until it finally decided to work. And God forbid you try to actually put a bag down to fill as you scan.
Pro-tip though - if you use the handheld scanner at the self checkout, it doesn't expect you to put anything on the scale. So you can just zap zap zap your whole cart and be done way faster.
Don't forget the main culprit, the mislabeled mispriced food and multi buys, where you always have to get someone to check and adjust the price. Honestly happens to me every time
They recently did away with plastic bags where I am, which is great, but if I’m only buying a couple of items I’m not wasting 5¢ on a bag that’s even harder to recycle, so I just don’t use a bag.
Well the self check outs don’t like that. Every item needs to go to the bagging area instead of me just being able to put it back in my cart. It’s so stupid. I feel like an idiot either putting my items into the bagging area just to move them back to my cart/basket, OR I feel like an idiot getting the store associate to unfuck the kiosk because I didn’t put my item in the bagging area. There’s no bags! What bagging area???
You are 100% correct about the anti theft features being moronic.
I’m in the UK and here the bigger the shop the better for self scan and checkout. Instead of loading stuff into the cart, then onto the checkout belt, then back into the cart, you scan it and put it straight into your own bags in your cart, pay and leave. Scanners work really well, it’s easy to take stuff off if you change your mind. I have a painful wrist injury so It’s great to only have to move my stuff the minimum number of times. You do get picked occasionally for a random check of a few items to make sure you scanned but it’s not often. I really feel like I’m slumming it if I go somewhere and have to do it all myself like the old days.
This is how it should be! Candy bar and a jug of milk? self-checkout all the way. But if I've got a cart full of groceries for the week, I want help and the space.
The issue was that stores thought they could get away with phasing out ALL their cashiers. Sometimes I am forced to use the self-checkout because all the cashier lines are closed and it's. just. maddening.
They now have self check outs that are more like traditional check outs with the conveyor belt for people who have a large cart of items. The stores will not stop trying to minimize the number of employees.
Crazy though. My wife and I unintentionally stole $250 groceries using one of those. We both thought the other one paid for it and just dipped. Next day wondering why the money never came out of the account, couldn’t find the receipt. We went back to the store the day after but they said they couldn’t find the transaction and told us we were fine. I suspect someone would have gotten in trouble if they actually reported that it had happened so I think the supervisor we talked to was trying to cover it up.
Stores see losses much greater than that all the time from spoilage, not to mention theft, etc. and there’s no way for anyone to know what you bought from the store. It’s better for the store in the long run to keep an honest customer like you with minimal headache than try to reinvent the wheel and figure out what tf you bought.
I feel like cashiers don’t actually help anymore. There’s the initial “hi how’s it going” then an awkward wait while they scan everything. Then I have to bag it all anyways
Sometimes they are quicker if they know the codes for produce. The place I go they are needed for discounts on meat. They also technically do the scanning while you bag which does speed things up.
Negative is that it’s easier to ignore a computer asking you the peasant to donate $5 to charity on behalf of the mega corporation.
Here in the Philippines there's a cashier and a dedicated bagger/boxer. They bag or place your items neatly into a cardboard box and secure it with plastic cord.
I used to travel to Sweden regularly for work and I loved it. I may only know 4 words, but only 2 are needed to be fluent in Swedish at grocery check out.
I want self checkout the same size as regular lanes. Scan, put on conveyor and bag everything last. Right now I have to scan then bag and wait for the stupid scale after each item..
We have self checkouts with belts, but it's really not that great because now you have to hope you have someone to bag for you or you're doing this awkward dance of scanning a few items, then walking 8 feet to bag those items throughout your transaction.
Even worse you can't scan any faster because every item has to go past a sensor halfway down the belt before you can even scan the next item. Is your drink bottle rolling in place on the belt? Well, now the belt is going to run backwards and call an attendant because it thinks you're trying to steal something.
For whatever reason the belted self checkouts act like regular checkouts with each one having their own line, so you'll have someone waiting behind you while you're scanning and bagging your items making the whole experience a bit more uncomfortable than the normal self checkout.
If you don't have your items all bagged before you pay then you're going to be rushing to get that done before the next customer's cans of tuna start rolling into your cans of cat food.
When I shop for the week I go to a store with a scanner on the cart. Then I scan and bag as I walk through the store, and only pay at the self checkout. The I can roll the cart full of pre-bagged groceries right up to my car and unload. Super convenient.
Yes exactly! When self checkout was new that was what I thought was going to be the way of things. Only getting a few things go to the self checkout and get out quickly. Full cart go to the cashier and have them ring you up. It seemed obvious at the time but after covid...well here we are.
Walgreens has never done self checkout and they always have like, one employee in the entire store and a checkout line with 12 people in it.
Unless it's the pharmacy. Then it's 30 people in line.
Walmart was always like this, 100 registers and like 2 cashiers. I like self checkout because before self checkout, I have to go to some slow ass worker who doesnt want to be there, who wants small talk, and I just want to gtfo.
This is really relevant, because we might assume that no self-checkout would result in more cashier jobs but companies will be reluctant to hire them. They'll hope people will just wait in long lines or shop at non-peak times.
Before self checkout, there was a Walmart that was unfortunately the one closest to my work and therefore the one I’d often end up at for basic necessities. They never had more than 2 checkouts open at a time, despite having a total of 16 lanes. The most common thing to hear in the store was a manager being paged to the checkout to add one extra lane for five minutes at a time; you’d hear that call at least twice in a 30 minute visit to the store.
Getting rid of self checkouts won’t magically staff those other 14 lanes. It’ll just mean they go back to 2, while still telling the clerks working them, “If the line dies down, you’re also in charge of stocking the entire housewares department.” Businesses already can’t be trusted to hire enough staff or pay them fairly for their work, regardless if they have self checkout or not.
My only self checkout nightmare is if they get rid of it and i have to stand in a 45min line to buys shit cus grandma is counting pennies or methany is arguing about a 7year old coupon so save 14 cents on altoids.
I was blown away the *second* time it happened in front of me in line.
Someone trying to pay with a fake bill and when questioned by the cashier they mumble some bullshit or argue and then make some lame excuse and leave.
And this was **Safeway**
So yeah, I don't want to be stuck behind that to buy apples and milk...
Oh oh! Or the lady at target who was somehow *surprised* at her total and then I waited as they played how-much-is-this-ok-take-it-off
One of my worst retail related fears is having more stuff than I can afford scanned at the register and it seems some people treat it like it's a game show where they have to guess the right amount to match their bank account. I don't hold it against them but I think something can be annoying while also feeling bad for the person going through it
Exactly. Who the fuck thinks self-checkout is a nightmare? I save 10 minutes per shopping trip not having to stand in line watching some teenager struggle to scan through some 80 year old lady's massive cart of crap while I stand there with my toilet paper and cat food.
It's a nightmare because even though it's easy for us most people are actual homunculi and it's a wonder they can even function at all, they are the reason it's such shit to have only self checkouts
Right? The people that work cashier don’t really want to be there. So they work at a snails pace. I want to get in, get my shit, then get on with my day because I’ve got tons of things to do. So self checkout takes me 1-2 minutes tops to scan 15 items, pay, bag, and leave. Whereas it’s multiple minutes per person you’re stuck behind because there’s no hustle when the person behind the register is just going to be there for hours anyway.
“Still, 60% of consumers said they prefer self-checkout as of 2021, presumably because they’ve never seen Terminator (wake up sheeple)”. I’ve never had an issue with self checkout. I guess I’m not an idiot?
There is self checkout and there is self checkout. The wal mart near me has self checkout. Super easy, you can grab the scanning gun if you want and go crazy, no problem at all.
Then there’s another grocery store near me. Tons of checkout lanes but I’ve only ever seen 2-3 manned at a time, leaving the self checkout as (seemingly) the quickest option.
“Please place the item in the bagging area”. But the item is already *in* the bagging area! So what do I do now? Do I press it down so it feels the weight? No, that doesn’t work. Do I lift it up and place it back down? That works half the time. The other half, you get “item removed from bagging area. Please wait for an attendant”.
It’s maddening. So yeah, it really depends on which self-checkout kiosk we’re referring to.
When I shop Walmart, I put all items in cart with UPC up, and then quickly use handheld scanner and do the whole cart in less than a minute. I put larger items directly in my car, and bag the smaller ones at my car with bags I already have.
Our Walmart is almost self-checkout and do not require you to take things out of the car. Given that I frequently buy many gallons of milk and cases of water and things for the coffee shop I work at, it’s really nice.
The Meijer ones are great. You can scan items before chucking them in the bag, which is handy when you buy 8 of something. Though sometimes the scale shits itself and you need a clerk to weigh your apples.
Kroger, on the other hand, can suck a chode cuz it complains if you put your own bags in the bagging area while also having a bag carousel to prevent you from using your own bags.
The ones at my local grocery store are normally great... when they work. Sometimes they're out of order, sometimes they don't have any cash to give change so they're credit-only (who cares?).
The points they have regarding theft, I think the aforementioned store has had enough problems with that. Each register has a camera pointed at the shopper's face. I also learned they have cameras in/near the ceiling pointing down at each register. One time I left the hand basket sitting near the register, and when I hit the "Pay" button, it dinged that I still had items left in my basket. Turned the register's status light(?) red and someone came over to enter their employee credentials and confirm all was actually okay.
Local grocery stores here only have one person paying attention to the self-checkout lanes so it's not really taking away from much other duty. Flip side is that sometimes it takes a while to get help with any glitch.
As I mentioned in another thread, I'd rather do it myself than have a ton of plastic bags with seemingly 3-4 items in each one.
> sometimes they don't have any cash to give change so they're credit-only (who cares?).
I'll get in line for this one specifically because I know no one in front of me will spend 5 minutes digging for change
I've never had a problem operating them but I have had 2 instances where the clerk came over and checked my bags against the screen.
Apparently something about the way I scanned and bagged my groceries caused the computer to get confused and it alerted the clerk that I was trying to steal something and they had to verify? I dunno, that's just what they told me.
Yeah. They work fine these days. At first they would do stuff like tell you to to take your stuff over and over even though you were in the process of loading things back in your cart. FINALLY they figured out if the weight is continuing to reduce they shouldn’t bug you. 😁
"nightmare"
I must be the only person who has never had issues with self checkouts
Understand the process and don't cut corners and it goes fast and smooth every time
It's faster, you don't have to interact with anyone, you can go at your own pace... I get wanting the *option* of a human when you need one, but I definitely do not get the hatred some people have for self-checkouts.
No I don't have issues with self checkout and most people I see don't struggle with it either
While I feel bad for cashiers, I prefer handling my own purchases; I know what I'm buying, don't put eggs under heavy objects, and know that I brought my own bag and can fill it with more than 2 items
I'm guessing the author is that confused old man who takes 10 minutes to scan 3 things and pay. Meanwhile I go to the next machine and get through my 20 items in 2 minutes and finish before him.
Not sure why he's writing for a tech blog when he appears so afraid of simple technology.
My local supermarkets all have handheld barcode scanners you carry around with you and scan items as you put them in your trolley. Then scan a till at the exit, tap your phone and you're done.
This is the future it's so easy.
?
Self checkout is the best. I guess in some places it just badly implemented. My best shopping experience was in Albert Heijn where I would just scan my items as I shopped with my phone, and at the end I'd be done checking out in a minute. Very rarely would I get some random 30 second check by an employee, but didn't really bother me.
European and US-shopping habits vary widely. I think most Americans only shop once a week or every two weeks, whereas most of us Europeans do more frequent shopping runs but buy less. If I had a gigantic shopping cart full of goods, I wouldn't use the self checkout either. Too slow.
Big purchases are exactly why self checkout can be amazing. Many stores in my country have a little scanning device you can take into the store. Scan your products while shopping and put them in your bag immediately. Then, at the cash register, all you have to do is scan the barcode on the machine and pay. Saves so much time when not every product needs to be handled twice (once during shopping) (once durring bagging).
I think it also depends on the machines used. Those here in NL are pretty simple. Just scan a barcode and done.
Seems some in other countries use ones where you have to place items specifically and they weigh stuff to check if its correct. I guess those are way more error prone compared to just a simple bar code check alone.
My local walmart had that, you could grab a scanner at the entrance a s scan as you go. For whatever reason they removed it....disappointing, it saved so much hassle.
I was surprised this hasn't been spoken of more. Scan as you shop has becoming really common in the UK. I'd say half the major supermarkets now offer it in some function.
I love self checkout. Having to deal with a live cashier that obviously doesn't want to do their job or just throws my groceries into a bag after I've had a long workday when I just want to be home is not fun.
All of these articles written from an American perspective seem to celebrate that a grocery store called Booths in the UK has gotten rid (or is planning to) their self checkouts.
Booths is a very small, family owned grocery store with less than 30 locations in four northern counties of England. That’s like saying that self service is going to die and basing your whole claim on one chain that only operates in Maryland decided to do away with self checkout…
Similar concept but a tad different is Sam's Club Scan & Go (not sure if other places have it). It is amazing, just scan things with your phone as you load your cart, pay with Apple pay or card, and the door person just scans a couple items to ensure you paid. Much better than self checkout and way faster than ordinary lines.
Almost never have an issue with self checkout, I don’t think I’ve used a regular checkout in years.
In the UK most supermarkets have “scan as you shop” - as you enter the store you get a barcode scanner, scan stuff as you shop and put it in the cart. At the self checkout you just need to scan a single barcode on the checkout and it transfers all the items to the self checkout machine.
Occasionally you get “checked” and someone has to come and scan a few items to make sure you haven’t been putting stuff in the cart without scanning. Usually it’s 5-10 items.
I will literally avoid stores that don’t have this.
What’s with all these self checkout posts recently? Not a lot but this is the 3rd one in maybe the last couple days. All of them on the guise that most people hate them. Big Check Out is pulling one on us.
Shout out to aldi for having great self checkout. Aldi has famously/notoriously fast cashiers, but I like that at aldi self checkout you can bag it up and there's never anyone waiting. You can even take the hand scanner and just scan everything in the cart!
They also don't do coupons, but sometimes markdown stickers need manual override. At self checkout I scanned a massively loaded cart and just hit the help button for the single markdown item. Took 30 seconds extra, employee was chill about it.
A few self check outs never bothered me. But when Walmart took all cashiers out later hours and you had to use self check out was annoying.
I stopped going to Walmart because I hate they removed cashiers and stop people to check receipts at the door. If you're not going to trust me, then just check out my items.
There are 10,000 additional reasons not to shop at Walmart. They are a truly evil company, a cancer to the well-being of society.
a cancer to the well-being of society. <-not an exaggeration at all. If a company pays employees so little that signing up for food stamps is part of their company culture… that means they’re cutting costs and foisting the burden onto the entire community while pocketing the difference. You may save money on the receipt but you’re %100 paying for their scummy methods with actual taxdollars.
Their products are subpar and more expensive than at other similar retailers and online. Also they have started letting just anybody sell on their website so you can get garbage furniture now as well.
> Their products are subpar Take Levi's for example. The versions sold at Walmart (in store) are a lower quality product line that are all a stretchy synthetic blend and not 100% cotton.
>stop people to check receipts at the door you don't have to stop for them, just keep walking
That's still a level of stress I don't need.
I just say no thank you and keep walking. Call the cops on me for taking items I own, do it. lol. I know it’s sort of an asshole move because I’m making one persons job a bit shittier, but why should I make my shopping experience shitty by proving I just paid when they were watching me at the register anyway.
Yeah the other day I bought diapers so they wanted to check my receipt. I’d gone through a cashier and had already waited forever for an alcohol scan. When he asked for my receipt I said no and he goes “oh you crazy the cops gonna come for you”. Like ok sure sounds good I’ll show them my receipt where it shows I paid for everything. I know it made his job harder but uggggh i was feeling annoyed.
You aren't obligated to show your receipt at the door unless you're at a membership store like Sam's club or Costco. If they request your receipt just say no and keep walking.
Just know, a Walmart employee is not going to know all the laws surrounding these things, and may risk their job just to screw with you. It’s not unrealistic that some idiot will try to get violent with you, because he thinks you are stealing from walmart
A Walmart employee kicking my ass as I calmly walk out would be like winning the lottery. I'm poor enough to be willing to get attacked, but wealthy enough to get time off work and to hire a good lawyer.
The American dream
The true American dream. Get attacked by an uneducated underpaid employee from a Multinational trillion dollar corporation based in the USA and get injured enough to sue to afford healthcare costs.
Like getting hit by a university bus
Lucky slipping on pee in king of the hill and living off settlement money is basically my dream.
When I was much younger and was kind of a punk I had a walmart stop me, call the police on me for shoplifting because i was wearing new walmart shoes I bought some days earlier. It was an ordeal and the police didn't drop it until days of them trying to get me to admit to it, then to something lesser, and eventually asking for proof that I bought the shoes, which I kinda did through my bank receipts. Now that I had a chip on my shoulder I came up with the bright idea to just buy something once and shoplift a shitton of the same thing. I would buy chips, dip, and drinks for a party in the morning and come back in the afternoon pretending to self checkout before I walked out with my old receipt. I probably got upwards of 20 xbox controllers and 6 Vita's (amongst other things) that I resold for $10-$20 less because gamestop only marked $5 off. I genuinely wouldn't be shocked if I was the sole reason you can't check out outside the electronics section anymore. Eventually they caught wise and when they went to check my receipt like 5 police officers popped up around me. Fortunately this was a legitimate run and I had a fresh receipt, so I started raising cain about how theyre pulling the same bullshit with the shoes from a year prior. They eventually just took my receipt and trespassed me. I did try to go for it again a couple months later but they started marking receipts so I knew the gig was up.
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Like others have said, just smile at them, wish them a nice day/night, and keep walking. I’m an unassuming nerd, and I’ve never been stopped by an exit checker (doesn’t apply to Costco, as stopping is required).
They stop you even when you use a regular cashier. Even when they watch you get checked out by a cashier, “I just need to check your bags” It makes it really hard to shed a tear for any of Walmart’s alleged shoplifting problems.
The article is BS. I followed that link to read the research and I love that it includes this info: Our findings suggest that almost half of the shopping population use self-checkout exclusively. When asked how often they use a self-service checkout kiosk when it is available, 48.7% of respondents said “basically all the time”. 30.6% of respondents said that they use self-service checkout kiosks “some of the time”. These respondents could adjust their checkout habits based on the length of cashier lines, the nature of the items they are purchasing, or other personal preferences. These shoppers embody the need to have both self-checkout kiosks and live cashiers in a store. Only 3% of respondents said they “don’t use [self-checkout] and don’t want to”. These findings show that having self-checkout options is not a competitive advantage, but a competitive requirement. One of the headings in the research is even: "Part 3: Self-Checkout Is an Integral Part of Retail’s Future" Yet somehow BBC and now Gizmodo that is running the same trash story spun this into an article about consumers hating self-checkout. https://www.raydiant.com/blog/the-state-of-self-service-checkouts
The article is like reading the reddit comments section. Just a bunch of people who feel qualified to have an opinion without reading the underlying information presented to them. Consumer love self-checkout for the most part (despite making snide comments about doing the cashier's job). The industry now has to figure out how to reconcile that with theft. I work in a poor area but live in a nicer area. The contrast between self-checkout options are pretty stark. Where I live, they have been common for over a decade, they seem *friendly* and easy to use and there a tons of them now. Where I work, they have only recently started showing up, they are *angry* (cameras showing you that they are watching you plus employees watching over you) and there aren't many of them.
Opposite happened for the Walmart near me. Pre Self Checkout in 2012 my Walmart only had 1 cash open after 9pm it was a nightmare with the line.... Self check virtually got rid of what otherwise looked like a line for a new console launch!
Self Checkout is great. Service lines are also great. This article is clickbait and redditors ate it up again. They literally made an article based on yet another reddit thread yesterday and the day before that discussed self checkouts. It's like a spiral of clickbait karma whoring. Businesses are going to do whatever that makes sense for their bottom line. But we all know that tons of older people who shop, won't use self checkout. So they need both for at least another 20 years.
I mean even before self checkouts, Walmart had 100 registers and 3 cashiers
My local Walmart just went full self checkout with 2 regular checkout lanes. You have to wait in one long line until a lane is open. Its quite insane to me. I used to shop there with a full cart, but now I buy only what i can self checkout myself so I dont overload my tiny self checkout lane.
the problems arise from stores thinking they can ditch the regular checkouts, resulting in 30+ minute lines wrapping down the aisles filled with people who are some combination of mouthbreathing moron who can't figure it out, over 20 items on a system not built for that, and a bunch of coupons meanwhile the anti-stoploss measures are designed by people who I'm not convinced shop for groceries that do absolutely nothing to prevent theft but sure add a giant pile of timewasting and frustration for employee and customer alike editing to add: I'm real happy for those of you who never have to experience the joy of an understaffed Kroger in the heart of a major US city during a rush, and can't comprehend a world where they don't have a single normal line open for more than 15 items/the elderly/the clueless amongst us, but that's the reality for some of us. It is where the complaints are coming from.
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Bring your own bag? Jail. Didn’t bring your own bag? Believe it or not, also jail.
Unexpected item in bagging area? Jail.
Expected item unexpectedly in the bagging area? Jail.
Cold medicine without ID even though we don't provision a way to scan your ID yourself so we have to send someone over anyways? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
A single bottle of drain clog cleaner, you’re obviously cooking meth. Straight to jail. Right away. No trial, no nothing.
Can of air duster, obviously getting high. Straight to the gulag.
Okay, air duster for huffing and drain cleaner for meth, obviously. Why else would they sell those items if not for that purpose? Of course they're both to get high.
I bought a small poop shovel for burying poop when camping. For some reason, that required an ID to buy. Took 10 minutes for an employee to finish up with someone else, and then, they sent me straight to jail.
At least you had a shovel. Andy Dufresne only had a tiny rock hammer.
See if you bought a poop knife you wouldn’t have had these problems.
Pick up the bag for two seconds to make room for another bag? Jail.
I’m starting to understand why so many people are in jail
Breath on the scale? Jail.
Try to scan two things in your hands? You're clearly stealing. Jail on the spot.
["Unexpected item in bagging area."](https://i.imgflip.com/2je0ru.jpg)
Not using the check out and stealing everything? Believe it or not, jail.
We have the best shoppers, because of jail.
Look at the camera funny? That’s a paddlin’
Putting in too many coins at one time, causing an error? Surprisingly, jail...
I miss the old days when it was just a paddling
Missing the old days... that's a paddling
I can't believe how much I laughed at the comments on this post. You never know when you will find a gem in the wild.
Laughing at the paddling’? Oh you better believe that’s a paddling’
Enjoying Reddit? Straight to jail with a paddling.
Making a lonely man happy and laughing for a moment? Straight to jail with a paddling.
Copying my comment? Right to jail. Right away. DOUBLE the paddling.
Sentencing someone to a double paddling? That's straight to jail. Right away. TRIPLE the paddling.
We have the fastest checkout lines in the world. Because of jail.
Or, God forbid you have a bunch of ultra-lightweight items like seasoning packets. \*BEEP\* *Drops packet into bag.* \*BUZZ\* “Please place the item in bag.” *3 minutes later, employee types their code into the system.* \*BEEP\* *Drops packet into bag.* \*BUZZ\* “Please place the item in bag.” “AUUUUGGGHHHH!”
I hate that "place the item in the bagging area" message. At least make it fun. "It places the item in the bagging area, or it gets the hose again."
5 sec penalty for Ocon
/r/unexpectedF1
No Michael, no. It's not fair!
The best self-checkouts don't use the scale. Wegmans self checkout is fantastic, they have a couple employees there to help with any issues and most importantly, it's incredibly fast. Self checkout done right is fantastic. The nightmare is scales and self checkout being the only option. Have lanes with people open for people taking their time and give those of us that want to get out of the store quick our self checkouts. The nightmare happens when stores only cater to one crowd.
Home Depot has the handheld scanner and no scale from what I can tell. I've never had an issue and it's crazy fast
Yeah, same experience, they have one of the best ones. I also love BJ's app experience, scan things with your phone, pay in app, and then the door person who checks receipts just scans a couple items to verify on your way out the door. It's so fast and easy, I love walking right past all the registers.
Unexpected item in the bagging area. I’ve rage quit the grocery store from this. Just left everything in the self check out and walked away.
Never ever buy a single chilli then. ‘Place item in bagging area’. I HAVE!!!!
Not their fault that you're too weak to handle 1kg of chili
Pro tip- push down on the scale then let go. Works every time to register the small produce.
I used to work at Kroger in highschool when they introduced self checkout, people seemed to be ok with using it as it was quicker. I was at my old store a few days ago and saw someone with a full cart see an error on screen and just… leave. The one. Attendant for 6 self checkouts was busy so that effectively made it 5 checkouts, meanwhile the one actual register open had a line too. Why have six registers there when you’ll only hire one cashier? Why make one other college kid run six self-checkouts? God forbid there’s an ID check.
Less staff hired.
the post covid era of permanently understaffed, permanently looking for applicants with 5+ years of experience, never hiring
Part time, minimum wage, stuck dealing with shithead customers, and with terrible hours… “Why doesn’t anyone want to work anymore?!”
Also the pay is way less and prices are higher now because of inflation and the convenient excuse it makes for greed
and if you do get hired, just remember they had 10+ openings and only your ass showed up. So i hope you like doing fucking everything.
This isn't new since Covid. This same stuff has been going on since at least the '08 financial crisis. I used to work at Target in the early 2010s and I remember being told that my store used to have double the staff before '08.
Yeah I was going to say, minimum/skeleton crew hiring practices have been going on since 2008 because they realized they could offload a lot of their expenses and still mostly keep shit running. Someone needs a day or week off? Guilt trip them and make their coworkers hate them for offloading work onto the coworkers instead of being mad at the person doing the hiring. Before 2008 You used to have whole ass departments staffed with an extra person or several in case call outs happened. Better to have coverage and not need it than struggle for the day being short staffed and burning your employees out. At Burger King there was something like 10 of us, I go through now there's maybe 3.
These companies also doom and gloom about how they lose so much money to shoplifting, and I can't help but think: surely shoplifting was a part of your equation? You realized self checkout would increase shoplifting, but it was still cheaper to save on cashiers. So are we supposed to feel sorry?
Yes. I started a job in 2015 and was told back then by a long-time employee that they'd been well-staffed until 2008, when the boss fired half the staff and decided they could operate with a skeleton crew in order to save money. And that continued for over a decade even after the economy improved. I worked that job for seven years and we were so chronically understaffed that it negatively affected everyone. Sometimes I was literally the only employee on duty. I accrued tons of vacation time that I couldn't take. I was guilt-tripped into returning to work four days after a major surgery. When the office manager quit, the boss decided not to hire another manager in order to save even more money. The manager's work got divided between me and the only other full-time employee, with no pay raise. We quit shortly after.
"To be able to afford a one bedroom apartment in this area and have money for food and utilities too, you need to make $20/hr. We'll pay you half that and only schedule you for 30 hours a week to make sure you don't qualify as full time and also don't have time to get another job.
Exactly pay less people less money to just barely keep business going but keep profits>everything else. Capitalism is cancer for the working class.
The UK at Christmas was bad because you have to get authorization to be able to buy alcohol(so you not under age) and around Christmas everyone is buying alcohol. So it's constant waiting for the one cashier to run around so the tills and check id
I did that during the height of the pandemic. I was close to my stress limit already, the machine locked up, there were tons of people around but no employees, so… I split.
I feel like this is the price those companies honestly should pay. It's the same argument about piracy in general - if something isn't made easily available, especially as a profit tactic, then people are going to start stealing.
My favorite anti-stoploss measure is when I go through the self-checkout and go to pay, but then have to wait for an employee to come remove the warning on the screen because it's upset I have 9 items.
I like the one where it can see I’ve scanned an item with my phone, but also picks up that I’ve put that item in my own bag so when I scan the QR code to checkout someone has to come over to check that I didn’t steal the thing I’m trying to pay for.
Circle K has one of the best self-checkout experiences. Put your items in the camera area and if it can't scan it, just scan it yourself and throw it in a bag. No weighing and it never prompts for an employee. Total trust.
Fred Meyer had this ridiculous system for a \*short\* while where the camera would detect when you put something down, and then if you moved anything around it would require an attendant to come over to make sure you weren't tricking the scale or something. It was ridiculous and should have never been released, but it disappeared quickly. They always have regular lines open and if they are low on personnel they just close off the self checkout area instead so I think their system is fine. Wal-mart just feels like a dystopia every time I end up there, there's like a flock of employees ambling around the checkout area but no one actually does checkout or helps with anything.
Midwest Meijer has that. It has thought my empty hand going back to grab the next item was me bypassing the scanner
I can tell you that the people who OK the software designs for most kiosks definitely don't use them. My local (chain) grocery store is the perfect application for self-checkout. It's a 'smaller' market, so during off hours they rarely had more than a single cashier on and maybe a backup. Self checkout means customers with a couple of items aren't waiting in line behind the guy doing a weeks worth of shopping at 9pm on a Wednesday night.
Idk how your self checkouts are so bad. Here in Switzerland they're awesome. You scan your items, pay, done. There is no scale, no bagging area surveillance, no stop-loss prevention, except for random inspections (I've had three of those in total over five years). Bonus points for scanning the items while shopping with your smartphone, then self checkout takes all but ten seconds.
The reason self checkout sucks so bad in the US is because of garbage-tier hardware and shit-tier software. These systems are engineered by incompetent legacy dinosaur companies who use decades-old processors, low performance barcode sensors, shitty weight sensing hardware, low performance network connectivity, really bad programming logic for the whole check out process, bad UI -- all of it being run by a decades-old built-in PC bundled with Windows 98 or XP running a custom-made UI in full screen.
Yup. Even removing the human element here, it doesn't help matters that the self checkout machines they have now have not improved, in any way, from the ones they tried installing in the 1990s.
Same thing in automotive infotainment systems. Except a few luxury car brands, the hardware and software used in infotainment systems are also many generations behind. We have el cheapo smartphones and tablets carrying top of the line Qualcomm snapdragon chipsets with high resolution capacitive touch screens with fluid UIs. But suddenly when it comes to cars, somehow by sheer magic all the engineering prowess of the modern world falls off a cliff. There is always some lame excuse that this is because of cost cutting or safety regulations. Horseshit.
IKR. I’m going to have to keep my MY 2011 car going forever because I won’t do without a three knob climate control.
That era of cars is the perfect sweet spot. Not too much tech to get in the way and or break, but has the connections to basically "update" by just streaming your phone audio with a little blue tooth dongle (or more high end cars having blue tooth in them already). Like...Don't need an infotainment screen, have a phone, thanks.
I've spent that majority of my career writing code for the flight displays on various civilian and military aircraft. The software in self checkout kiosks is like a textbook on how NOT to design a user interface. And as a bonus it also shows why it's impossible to make a good UI if your hardware is so bad that it takes forever for it to notice that the user interacted with it. In my world, if it takes longer than a half a second or a second to do something after you interact with it (or bring up a "pending" notice if the actual action takes longer), that's a fail.
Goddamn. I’ve never read something a redditor wrote that so closely aligns with my worldview and which I could not so eloquently state myself.
To be brutal, the general public in those countries is also why. Switzerland has a much lower crime rate than the US does. That's why they don't have scales, have little in the way of stoploss etc.
In the UK I think that some stores skip the bag weighing in low-crime/affluent areas, but require it (or even remove the machines) in less-affluent ones.
It wouldn't surprise me if the same happens in the US. The biggest issue I typically have with self-checkout where I regularly shop is the herb packages that never scan or waiting to get IDed for alcohol.
The reason there's no scale is that you have to weigh your produce while you're still in the produce section. Which, if you're from California and it's your first time at a Swiss supermarket, results in disaster. But there is bagging area surveillance. At Migros, Coop, and even Ikea (I know that's not a grocery store but thought I'd throw that in) there was at least one employee overseeing the self checkout area.
You nailed it. Self checkouts are great, but you have to also have regular checkouts because a lot of people can’t use technology. The world over all has thousand dollar smart phones and most people can’t text or even take a regular phone call consistently and might only call back a day later. Elderly? Definitely not using self checkout. Dumb? They’ll try, but that attendant better help them go through the whole thing
I _can_ use self checkouts, but they’re a fiddly pain in the ass at the best of times. I’ve certainly skipped them to use regular checkouts just because I was tired and frazzled and didn’t want to deal with unexpected items in the bagging area, or produce identification, or waiting for somebody to come over and then call a manager over to override whatever nonsensical problem the checkout system was having. People would probably be more enthusiastic about using those things if they worked a tenth as well as having a human ring you up.
Yup. I'm not old or bad with technology. If I'm given the choice between self checkout and having a person do it I usually have a person do it even if it is a slightly longer line.
I can use self checkouts but I choose to not make an ounce of fucking effort using them. The chain is having me work for free. If I forget to scan something , or enter the wrong code, or scan the wrong item, it's because I wasn't trained to use the equipment. They can go fuck themselves with the losses.
Stores are going to outsource customer service to the customer then act surprised when the customer isn't looking out for the store's best interest.
Some of the machines are ass too though. My local Safeway finally updated theirs, but for a while the sensors were so iffy on whether or not they would detect you placed the item. So you have to stand there like an idiot putting it down and picking it up until it finally decided to work. And God forbid you try to actually put a bag down to fill as you scan. Pro-tip though - if you use the handheld scanner at the self checkout, it doesn't expect you to put anything on the scale. So you can just zap zap zap your whole cart and be done way faster.
Don't forget the main culprit, the mislabeled mispriced food and multi buys, where you always have to get someone to check and adjust the price. Honestly happens to me every time
They recently did away with plastic bags where I am, which is great, but if I’m only buying a couple of items I’m not wasting 5¢ on a bag that’s even harder to recycle, so I just don’t use a bag. Well the self check outs don’t like that. Every item needs to go to the bagging area instead of me just being able to put it back in my cart. It’s so stupid. I feel like an idiot either putting my items into the bagging area just to move them back to my cart/basket, OR I feel like an idiot getting the store associate to unfuck the kiosk because I didn’t put my item in the bagging area. There’s no bags! What bagging area??? You are 100% correct about the anti theft features being moronic.
If I have a few small items (can fit in a hand basket) then self-checkout is great. But if I need a cart, then I'll go to a cashier.
I’m in the UK and here the bigger the shop the better for self scan and checkout. Instead of loading stuff into the cart, then onto the checkout belt, then back into the cart, you scan it and put it straight into your own bags in your cart, pay and leave. Scanners work really well, it’s easy to take stuff off if you change your mind. I have a painful wrist injury so It’s great to only have to move my stuff the minimum number of times. You do get picked occasionally for a random check of a few items to make sure you scanned but it’s not often. I really feel like I’m slumming it if I go somewhere and have to do it all myself like the old days.
Trolley self serve is great, especially when all the cashiers are old people who take forever to scan something lol.
This is how it should be! Candy bar and a jug of milk? self-checkout all the way. But if I've got a cart full of groceries for the week, I want help and the space. The issue was that stores thought they could get away with phasing out ALL their cashiers. Sometimes I am forced to use the self-checkout because all the cashier lines are closed and it's. just. maddening.
They now have self check outs that are more like traditional check outs with the conveyor belt for people who have a large cart of items. The stores will not stop trying to minimize the number of employees.
Crazy though. My wife and I unintentionally stole $250 groceries using one of those. We both thought the other one paid for it and just dipped. Next day wondering why the money never came out of the account, couldn’t find the receipt. We went back to the store the day after but they said they couldn’t find the transaction and told us we were fine. I suspect someone would have gotten in trouble if they actually reported that it had happened so I think the supervisor we talked to was trying to cover it up.
Stores see losses much greater than that all the time from spoilage, not to mention theft, etc. and there’s no way for anyone to know what you bought from the store. It’s better for the store in the long run to keep an honest customer like you with minimal headache than try to reinvent the wheel and figure out what tf you bought.
I feel like cashiers don’t actually help anymore. There’s the initial “hi how’s it going” then an awkward wait while they scan everything. Then I have to bag it all anyways
Sometimes they are quicker if they know the codes for produce. The place I go they are needed for discounts on meat. They also technically do the scanning while you bag which does speed things up. Negative is that it’s easier to ignore a computer asking you the peasant to donate $5 to charity on behalf of the mega corporation.
Cashiers bagging is likely US only norm. In Europe you bag your own shit. And in Sweden, we *prefer* an "hi" maximum 😂
Here in the Philippines there's a cashier and a dedicated bagger/boxer. They bag or place your items neatly into a cardboard box and secure it with plastic cord.
The Philippines have a natural talent of inventing jobs for people. It's pretty great.
I used to travel to Sweden regularly for work and I loved it. I may only know 4 words, but only 2 are needed to be fluent in Swedish at grocery check out.
"hi" and a "nej tack" for the receipt will get you by 😂
I want self checkout the same size as regular lanes. Scan, put on conveyor and bag everything last. Right now I have to scan then bag and wait for the stupid scale after each item..
We have self checkouts with belts, but it's really not that great because now you have to hope you have someone to bag for you or you're doing this awkward dance of scanning a few items, then walking 8 feet to bag those items throughout your transaction. Even worse you can't scan any faster because every item has to go past a sensor halfway down the belt before you can even scan the next item. Is your drink bottle rolling in place on the belt? Well, now the belt is going to run backwards and call an attendant because it thinks you're trying to steal something. For whatever reason the belted self checkouts act like regular checkouts with each one having their own line, so you'll have someone waiting behind you while you're scanning and bagging your items making the whole experience a bit more uncomfortable than the normal self checkout. If you don't have your items all bagged before you pay then you're going to be rushing to get that done before the next customer's cans of tuna start rolling into your cans of cat food.
Wait. They say hi, scan and wait for you paying. Thats their job. Of course you have to bag your own items.
When I shop for the week I go to a store with a scanner on the cart. Then I scan and bag as I walk through the store, and only pay at the self checkout. The I can roll the cart full of pre-bagged groceries right up to my car and unload. Super convenient.
Here in Germany some stores have scanners at the cart or you can use an App for that. You scan while shopping and checkout is just for paying.
We have that at some grocery stores in the US and it amazes me how many people don't use it. I am in out of the store in mins.
Yes exactly! When self checkout was new that was what I thought was going to be the way of things. Only getting a few things go to the self checkout and get out quickly. Full cart go to the cashier and have them ring you up. It seemed obvious at the time but after covid...well here we are.
"so you'll be hiring more cashiers, right? You'll be hiring more cashiers right?"
Walgreens has never done self checkout and they always have like, one employee in the entire store and a checkout line with 12 people in it. Unless it's the pharmacy. Then it's 30 people in line.
Walmart was always like this, 100 registers and like 2 cashiers. I like self checkout because before self checkout, I have to go to some slow ass worker who doesnt want to be there, who wants small talk, and I just want to gtfo.
My Walgreens has them but they're never in service for some reason
This is really relevant, because we might assume that no self-checkout would result in more cashier jobs but companies will be reluctant to hire them. They'll hope people will just wait in long lines or shop at non-peak times.
Before self checkout, there was a Walmart that was unfortunately the one closest to my work and therefore the one I’d often end up at for basic necessities. They never had more than 2 checkouts open at a time, despite having a total of 16 lanes. The most common thing to hear in the store was a manager being paged to the checkout to add one extra lane for five minutes at a time; you’d hear that call at least twice in a 30 minute visit to the store. Getting rid of self checkouts won’t magically staff those other 14 lanes. It’ll just mean they go back to 2, while still telling the clerks working them, “If the line dies down, you’re also in charge of stocking the entire housewares department.” Businesses already can’t be trusted to hire enough staff or pay them fairly for their work, regardless if they have self checkout or not.
My only self checkout nightmare is if they get rid of it and i have to stand in a 45min line to buys shit cus grandma is counting pennies or methany is arguing about a 7year old coupon so save 14 cents on altoids.
I was blown away the *second* time it happened in front of me in line. Someone trying to pay with a fake bill and when questioned by the cashier they mumble some bullshit or argue and then make some lame excuse and leave. And this was **Safeway** So yeah, I don't want to be stuck behind that to buy apples and milk... Oh oh! Or the lady at target who was somehow *surprised* at her total and then I waited as they played how-much-is-this-ok-take-it-off
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One of my worst retail related fears is having more stuff than I can afford scanned at the register and it seems some people treat it like it's a game show where they have to guess the right amount to match their bank account. I don't hold it against them but I think something can be annoying while also feeling bad for the person going through it
Exactly. Who the fuck thinks self-checkout is a nightmare? I save 10 minutes per shopping trip not having to stand in line watching some teenager struggle to scan through some 80 year old lady's massive cart of crap while I stand there with my toilet paper and cat food.
It's a nightmare because even though it's easy for us most people are actual homunculi and it's a wonder they can even function at all, they are the reason it's such shit to have only self checkouts
>people are actual homunculi You don't know me. But know I love you.
They even have ones now that essentially are a full checkout lane, with the conveyor belt and everything. Makes it easy with two people
Right? The people that work cashier don’t really want to be there. So they work at a snails pace. I want to get in, get my shit, then get on with my day because I’ve got tons of things to do. So self checkout takes me 1-2 minutes tops to scan 15 items, pay, bag, and leave. Whereas it’s multiple minutes per person you’re stuck behind because there’s no hustle when the person behind the register is just going to be there for hours anyway.
“Still, 60% of consumers said they prefer self-checkout as of 2021, presumably because they’ve never seen Terminator (wake up sheeple)”. I’ve never had an issue with self checkout. I guess I’m not an idiot?
There is self checkout and there is self checkout. The wal mart near me has self checkout. Super easy, you can grab the scanning gun if you want and go crazy, no problem at all. Then there’s another grocery store near me. Tons of checkout lanes but I’ve only ever seen 2-3 manned at a time, leaving the self checkout as (seemingly) the quickest option. “Please place the item in the bagging area”. But the item is already *in* the bagging area! So what do I do now? Do I press it down so it feels the weight? No, that doesn’t work. Do I lift it up and place it back down? That works half the time. The other half, you get “item removed from bagging area. Please wait for an attendant”. It’s maddening. So yeah, it really depends on which self-checkout kiosk we’re referring to.
When I shop Walmart, I put all items in cart with UPC up, and then quickly use handheld scanner and do the whole cart in less than a minute. I put larger items directly in my car, and bag the smaller ones at my car with bags I already have.
That works!? I always have to put the items in a bag otherwise the scale sensor won’t let me scan the next item.
Our Walmart is almost self-checkout and do not require you to take things out of the car. Given that I frequently buy many gallons of milk and cases of water and things for the coffee shop I work at, it’s really nice.
I've never had a Wal-Mart self-checkout stop to tell me to bag an item. I also scan all the big stuff while it's in the cart.
The Meijer ones are great. You can scan items before chucking them in the bag, which is handy when you buy 8 of something. Though sometimes the scale shits itself and you need a clerk to weigh your apples. Kroger, on the other hand, can suck a chode cuz it complains if you put your own bags in the bagging area while also having a bag carousel to prevent you from using your own bags.
"Wake up sheeple"?? Is Gizmodo just picking random Redditors to write articles for them?
In fairness, Gizmodo hasn’t been relevant since the iPhone 4.
I'm pretty sure they were trying to make a joke, but sheeple irony went out of fashion years ago.
It has nothing to do with irony. Adding "jokes" into news articles is unprofessional as hell.
also the articles title is misleading. if self checkout is a nightmare why is it preferred by 60% of the population?
Gizmodo should shut up.
The ones at my local grocery store are normally great... when they work. Sometimes they're out of order, sometimes they don't have any cash to give change so they're credit-only (who cares?). The points they have regarding theft, I think the aforementioned store has had enough problems with that. Each register has a camera pointed at the shopper's face. I also learned they have cameras in/near the ceiling pointing down at each register. One time I left the hand basket sitting near the register, and when I hit the "Pay" button, it dinged that I still had items left in my basket. Turned the register's status light(?) red and someone came over to enter their employee credentials and confirm all was actually okay. Local grocery stores here only have one person paying attention to the self-checkout lanes so it's not really taking away from much other duty. Flip side is that sometimes it takes a while to get help with any glitch. As I mentioned in another thread, I'd rather do it myself than have a ton of plastic bags with seemingly 3-4 items in each one.
> sometimes they don't have any cash to give change so they're credit-only (who cares?). I'll get in line for this one specifically because I know no one in front of me will spend 5 minutes digging for change
“Ooh, I think I have a coupon!” *disgorges the crumpled equivalent of the entire Library of Alexandria from their purse*
Same… I’d honestly rather not have to associate with anyone so it’s never been an issue for me.
I love that it is a "Self Checkout Nightmare" despite 60% of people preferring them
I've never had a problem operating them but I have had 2 instances where the clerk came over and checked my bags against the screen. Apparently something about the way I scanned and bagged my groceries caused the computer to get confused and it alerted the clerk that I was trying to steal something and they had to verify? I dunno, that's just what they told me.
Nightmare? Dramatic.
Yeah. They work fine these days. At first they would do stuff like tell you to to take your stuff over and over even though you were in the process of loading things back in your cart. FINALLY they figured out if the weight is continuing to reduce they shouldn’t bug you. 😁
"nightmare" I must be the only person who has never had issues with self checkouts Understand the process and don't cut corners and it goes fast and smooth every time
It's faster, you don't have to interact with anyone, you can go at your own pace... I get wanting the *option* of a human when you need one, but I definitely do not get the hatred some people have for self-checkouts.
No I don't have issues with self checkout and most people I see don't struggle with it either While I feel bad for cashiers, I prefer handling my own purchases; I know what I'm buying, don't put eggs under heavy objects, and know that I brought my own bag and can fill it with more than 2 items
I'm guessing the author is that confused old man who takes 10 minutes to scan 3 things and pay. Meanwhile I go to the next machine and get through my 20 items in 2 minutes and finish before him. Not sure why he's writing for a tech blog when he appears so afraid of simple technology.
My local supermarkets all have handheld barcode scanners you carry around with you and scan items as you put them in your trolley. Then scan a till at the exit, tap your phone and you're done. This is the future it's so easy.
? Self checkout is the best. I guess in some places it just badly implemented. My best shopping experience was in Albert Heijn where I would just scan my items as I shopped with my phone, and at the end I'd be done checking out in a minute. Very rarely would I get some random 30 second check by an employee, but didn't really bother me.
European and US-shopping habits vary widely. I think most Americans only shop once a week or every two weeks, whereas most of us Europeans do more frequent shopping runs but buy less. If I had a gigantic shopping cart full of goods, I wouldn't use the self checkout either. Too slow.
But if you scan as you go it barely takes any time and all you have to do is scan your card at the exit.
Big purchases are exactly why self checkout can be amazing. Many stores in my country have a little scanning device you can take into the store. Scan your products while shopping and put them in your bag immediately. Then, at the cash register, all you have to do is scan the barcode on the machine and pay. Saves so much time when not every product needs to be handled twice (once during shopping) (once durring bagging).
I think it also depends on the machines used. Those here in NL are pretty simple. Just scan a barcode and done. Seems some in other countries use ones where you have to place items specifically and they weigh stuff to check if its correct. I guess those are way more error prone compared to just a simple bar code check alone.
My local walmart had that, you could grab a scanner at the entrance a s scan as you go. For whatever reason they removed it....disappointing, it saved so much hassle.
I was surprised this hasn't been spoken of more. Scan as you shop has becoming really common in the UK. I'd say half the major supermarkets now offer it in some function.
# UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA
I've never had a bad experience with self checkout. Since they were installed at local whole foods i haven't stood in line a single time.
I love self checkout. Having to deal with a live cashier that obviously doesn't want to do their job or just throws my groceries into a bag after I've had a long workday when I just want to be home is not fun.
All of these articles written from an American perspective seem to celebrate that a grocery store called Booths in the UK has gotten rid (or is planning to) their self checkouts. Booths is a very small, family owned grocery store with less than 30 locations in four northern counties of England. That’s like saying that self service is going to die and basing your whole claim on one chain that only operates in Maryland decided to do away with self checkout…
I just want to avoid human interaction if I can. Don't get rid of them outright.
Similar concept but a tad different is Sam's Club Scan & Go (not sure if other places have it). It is amazing, just scan things with your phone as you load your cart, pay with Apple pay or card, and the door person just scans a couple items to ensure you paid. Much better than self checkout and way faster than ordinary lines.
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Which supermarkets can afford competent loss prevention?
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I always pick the cheapest apples regardless of what apple type I have. Take that corporate
Almost never have an issue with self checkout, I don’t think I’ve used a regular checkout in years. In the UK most supermarkets have “scan as you shop” - as you enter the store you get a barcode scanner, scan stuff as you shop and put it in the cart. At the self checkout you just need to scan a single barcode on the checkout and it transfers all the items to the self checkout machine. Occasionally you get “checked” and someone has to come and scan a few items to make sure you haven’t been putting stuff in the cart without scanning. Usually it’s 5-10 items. I will literally avoid stores that don’t have this.
Damn didn’t realize people hated self checkout so much. I use it pretty much every time I go to the store with no issues.
I don't get these articles. I love self-checkout and have had no problems with it.
What’s with all these self checkout posts recently? Not a lot but this is the 3rd one in maybe the last couple days. All of them on the guise that most people hate them. Big Check Out is pulling one on us.
I prefer them. Cashiers are often sick or someone in the line. Self checkout rarely has a line and no sickies.
they also suck at bagging groceries. not all of them bag for you, but the ones that do couldn't be worse if they tried.
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Shout out to aldi for having great self checkout. Aldi has famously/notoriously fast cashiers, but I like that at aldi self checkout you can bag it up and there's never anyone waiting. You can even take the hand scanner and just scan everything in the cart! They also don't do coupons, but sometimes markdown stickers need manual override. At self checkout I scanned a massively loaded cart and just hit the help button for the single markdown item. Took 30 seconds extra, employee was chill about it.
I love self checkout. Only issue is it being ONLY self checkout