I live in the greater Boston area. I despise self checkout. The reasons are the following:
Most importantly, the self checkouts at Stop and Shop ( a major grocery store chain) almost never work. Inevitably, one needs to call a real human being to help you out. In fact most of the people who work there are watching people at self check out for issues and come right over because they know there’s going to be a problem. 2. Self checkouts eliminate conversation between people. This adds to the problem of lack of personal contact and isolation in our society.
How does self check out promote jobs? Seems to me a just eliminates them. 4. Given that I always need help from a real person at self check out it doesn’t save me time. 4. I’ve only noticed self check out at Stop & Shop and CVS but I can’t wait for it to disappear completely.
“Despise” is a rather strong word but you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. Point by point:
Pretty much agree, but here it wasn’t all that bad until lately.
I like to converse but there are many times when I’d rather not wait in line, behind people with full carts, to buy my handful of items.
If self-checkouts are a significant reason why some people shop at a given store (as they are for me) they help keep that store in business. If I start to see more checkers , now that the self-checks are gone, my wait will be less and (I’d hope) more people WILL have jobs. Haven’t seen it yet.
I have pretty much quit shopping at my local big grocer . The lines , self checkout or not . I pretty much shop at a grocer that has been around forever, Est.1938 . Great products . Never a wait with a checker who always has a bagger . It’s worth a couple bucks more for my time and sanity . A very busy store who knows what their doing .
1.) not to pick a fight with anyone here however the technology at self vs full checkout is identical. There is no difference between the two so the odds that the self checkout is always “not working” vs. it’s fouled due to human error is extremely low. It’s not that self checkouts don’t work or are more frequently broken, it’s the user(s) don’t know what they are doing.
Again not pointing to you Mid, just adding my $ .02 to the topic by responding to your latest post. 99% of the time it’s not the technology it’s the user.
I’m obviously in the minority here, but
at our Winco-giant sized warehouse store, they are a blessing since they have no express lanes. If I’m buying a few things or beverages it is wonderful.
Ours seem to be state of the art and always work.
The only difference I see is that the self-checkout lines have an extra element in their routine in which they are programmed to make sure the item you are buying has been ‘placed in your bag’. I’ve never understood why that is and I’ve never noticed a regular checker have their system stop them if I take an item directly from them instead of having them bag it.
I rarely have a problem with self checkouts while using them but, when I do, it’s mostly that they will hang up over this ‘have you bagged it’ element. Once it a while the system will refuse to recognize something I’m buying and won’t respond to my attempts to back up or abort. It could be how I’m using the system but I can’t be sure.
I don’t doubt user error is what causes the majority of problems but, when a lane has to be shut down for hours, that would suggest that the software isn’t the best at what it’s supposed to do. I rarely find them down at Ralph’s, so they either have sharper customers, better on sight service, or better software.
I like self-service checkout and use it regularly when it’s available. Of the three stores in my highest rotation currently, Walmart Neighborhood Mkt, HEB and Aldi, only the WM has self-check.
I like that I will know that if I’m overcharged for something, it’s my fault and not some checker. Likewise I like that I can bag my own groceries the way I want them bagged (and not bag separately what I don’t want bagged). Being able to get in and out quickly also matters to me. When I go to specialty markets, browsing is a lot of fun. When I’m just shopping for the basics, I have a list and I don’t browse.
I have 2 WM Neighborhood Mkts within a couple of miles of me. I stopped using one because it’s not as nice a store, the produce department is smaller and the self-check lanes have more problems and outtages. I shop mostly in the AM and for a household of one so almost never have a full basket and neither one has express lanes.
I despise big-box stores of all ilks so I avoid the Super WMs like the plague but I do find it necessary to go sometimes. Their self-check lanes always have a dedicated overseer to help with problems while the one Neighborhood Market I go to still only has a dedicated overseer in the afternoon and evening when the store is busier.
The Kroger stores that I go to all have self-check lanes and express lanes. Their self-check stations always have a dedicated overseer.
My HEB is a very small, older store so I drive 20-25 minutes sometimes to go to larger, nicer stores. None of the ones I sometimes go to in the city have self-check lanes but in the suburbs like Sugar Land and Missouri City, I’ve found the large HEB’s have both self-check and express lanes. I don’t know why some stores have them in the same chain/same market and others don’t.
The Randall’s (Safeway) nearest me does not have self-check but in other parts of town, I have encountered self-check lanes in other Randall’s stores including in a neighborhood just a few blocks from an HEB that doesn’t and a Kroger that does. (Montrose for any Houstonians reading this).
The weight /bag your item is to prevent someone from palming a pack of tic-tacs waving it over the scanner while holding a flat panel TV and placing it in their cart after scanning. It’s their verification system for what you scanned it what you purchased. (The tic tac trick has been used by cashiers to give their friends significant discounts on items…waive your hand over sensors “beep” bag of lobsters slide by for $ .99 )
Hmmm. Do you mean that the system knows the unit weight of each SKU and reacts if it reads something different? I do notice issues with very light weight items.
Free speech …so I stick with " despise" as my adjective towards self checkout. I suppose some of this may have to do with the geographical area in which you live and the type of store it is. Our CVS self- checks most always have snafus.
Re: the comment about theft, my friend and I watched a guy steal a whole bunch of groceries at one. He put the food on the belt, then sprinted out of there in a flash. The people working there said it happens all the time. We asked why they didn’t eliminate them and they said it was up to the upper management and no one seemed to change things. Who knows?
Belt?
Our setup requires you to stage them, then scan them, and on into the bag. It always asks if you want to skip putting the item in the bag- gallons of milk for instance.
No wonder it is a pain for you.
Here in SoCal, all the major market self checks have a small platform you can put your hand basket on (if you use one), or the few items you have. You scan them one by one and put them in your final carry object. No belts or sizeable staging areas. If you use a shopping cart you skip the platform.
Typically, I find grocery store cashiers aggravating. I deal with people and problems all day at work. By the time I get to the store after work, my patience is done. I don’t care to be stuck behind the customer who wants to tell their life story to the cashier, the cashier who wants analyze and give commentary on my grocery purchase or the cashier who is moving painfully slow.
Dont get me wrong, I’m not rude and am very respectful in the way I treat those working service jobs because I know how frustrating dealing with the public can get. It is just my preference.
3 stores in my area have the self check out and that is what I typically go to when at these stores.
Costco is lying about theft being the reason to eliminate self checkout. Sams uses the same item verification system and has thriving self-checkouts. They were hardly used at first, which was nice, but now they’re almost always occupied and the wait is still shorter than at the staffed lines. They’ve recently added self-scanning via phone app that lets us scan items as we add them to our cart and pay for them using the phone, letting us skip the lines completely. When we get to the door, the monitor uses a scanner to read our bar code receipt and verify the items. It’s fast and easy. I wish Costco would bring self-check back because the lines are almost always crazy long.
Sams has an employee monitoring the self-checkout lines at all times, so that takes care of the job elimination complaint. It keeps the lines moving, too.
At WM I always use the self-checkout if I can, just to avoid the lines. Fortunately, the 2 major markets, Winn-Dixie and Publix, respond pretty quickly to crowds. Even during busy times I’ve seldom had more than 1-2 carts in front of me without another lane being opened. Self-checkout isn’t really needed there.
I’m one who likes human interaction, but I dislike being the person kept waiting while Chatty Cathy tells the patient cashier about the time she won the 3rd grade spelling bee.
In fairness to Costco, the theft reason was advanced by a couple of employees not the Costco company itself. Perhaps I’ve become over-sensitive to the word “lying” lately.
This person certainly prefers full service. Maybe they took them out before they had extra staffing worked out? Or, perhaps the manager isn’t too smart?
Two weeks now and, after waiting 5+ minutes in the 15-item express lane, I asked the checker if he missed the self-checkouts. His response was to laugh and tell me they haven’t added many additional checker shifts. Of the 8 people waiting with me 4 had only one or two items. I had 14 and felt out of place. Tell me again how it will create jobs?
