Walmart, Costco and other companies rethink self-checkout, some stores removing them
Retailers in Europe, like Booths supermarkets, and the United States, like Walmart, are pulling back on having self-checkout in light of complaints and shoplifting.
I like self checkout as an option, almost everywhere.
I DON'T like REQUIRED self checkout.
Same. I'm purchasing 2 small things and there's a line with the creepy incel cashier? Yep self checkout FTW. I have an entire cart full of stuff and the store doesn't even have a cashier? FML.
Ya, having a lot of items, or odd items like vegetables or bulk items at a grocery store that need to have a code entered or need to be weighed suck at self checkout.
I would also say large items, but home depot and costco provide wireless scanners which work very well. Can just roll your cart up grab the scanner scan and go without taking stuff off.
I don't mind self checkout. It turns out i can be so incompetent that the self checkout watcher has to scan everything for me.
I actually really dislike it. I hate how it takes away lots of jobs from people. For example, there used to be a lot of removed people who did bagging. That was an awesome way to get them into the workforce.
I understand some people don’t like social interaction and like self check out, but they should suck it up.
O green peppers are 99 cents each but red and yellow are 1.29? That's so weird all these peppers I'm buying are green.
Fuck you, I'm the cashier now.
Bill Burr: "what're you gonna do? cut my hours?"
Also
Oh, something didnt scan and you walked out without paying for it?
Enjoy your broken spine as cops appear in full swat outfit and tackle you to the ground and beat you with clubs because you are shocked and arent immediately calm and compliant.
My husband had a nasty cold and the self scan he was using we later found out should have had an out of order sign on it. After missing the fact that it wasn't dinging for every item because he couldn't hear well, they pulled him and had him arrested. His total was off by $100 and he should've realized it, admittedly, but he just wanted to get home. We were able to get them to drop the charges because the self check out was malfunctioning but he's still banned from Walmart.
Yeah I'm not paid to use your stupid machine properly. I generally avoid self-checkout and never use it if I have a manually entered item. When there are no full service registers or only one, you know I'm going to be extra sloppy with the self-checkout.
I generally avoid self-checkout and never use it if I have a manually entered item.
At a certain point you're just denying yourself the savings. Go get that informal employee discount!
I'm against what Walmart especially has done by remodelling stores and removing their checkout lanes and replacing them all with self checkout.
but I have nothing against a store having a couple self checkout lanes.
Cause they are nice to have if you only bought one or two things, and don't want to wait behind a full cart.. or if you are buying something you are personally embarrassed about and don't want to have a cashier see.
Self Checkout should be a very minor option valuable to a select few.
not the primary means of checking out for everyone.
Oh for sure, if I gotta guess I'm picking the one that's best for me every time.
Self checkout wants my opinion I'll give it :)
At Costco it's great minus the membership checks. Thanks this was a quick process, now let me stop and take my card out so you can see I'm not stealing deals.
Walmart, fuck you hire more cashier's why am I waiting 10 minutes to checkout at self checkout when you have 50 closed fucking lanes!
Walmart, fuck you hire more cashier's why am I waiting 10 minutes to checkout at self checkout when you have 50 closed fucking lanes!
I straight up said this the last time I was there to one of the managers watching the self checkout after I heard them complaining about the long ass line. Maybe if you actually turned the other 20 lanes on instead of only having 3 the lines would go by quicker, ya dumbasses.
The thing I really hate about it is that where I live, they don't have bags at the self checkout. Cuz you know, someone might steal a fucking plastic bag. 🙄
Where I live (Montréal, Canada) plastic bags are banned everywhere. You either bring your own or buy a reusable at the cash. Some places (like grocery stores) also sell paper bags. You get used to it. If you have a car you leave a bunch of reusables in the trunk, if you don't you just have to remember to bring one with you. The also sell some super thin ones you can carry in your pockets that are sturdy and large enough for a small run at the grocery store.
In the before times, when you could still find baggers at checkouts, paper bags were provided. I know the cost was figured in to the prices but it is B.S. that they now charge for them.
Neverminding that we have to scan the cards to even begin scanning the (soon to be our) stuff.
The Costco self checkouts can only do a certain amount of weight per square inch before they shit the bed. Which is bad, because it's costco. Unloading the entire shelf while you haven't paid can't be done, so you have to scan, hit the weight limit, pay, unload, then scan and load the shelf again...and then pay again. Idiotic design that multiplies the wait times considerably, lol.
I only use them if I'm carrying my items in my hands.
My Costco has had “self checkout” for about a year now. There’s a Costco employee that waves you over and scans all your items. I really don’t get it.
I have no sympathy for companies losing money due to theft at self-checkout, it's a cost saving measure that's bitten them in the ass.
They also suck for alcohol, or anything that doesn't have a barcode, as mentioned in the story. I never buy either of those products at self checkout.
That said, I really liked the opportunity to not have to socialize with someone
Ha,, I once got booted from a Safeway in my early 20's when I was trying to buy beers and the lady who was supposed to be verifying ID was shooting the shit w her coworker. She clearly saw the thing flashing, but wanted to finish her story. I tried waving at her to no avail. She had a very I'll get to you in a minute vibe, but she clearly wasn't talking about work stuff. I had worked at a Lucky previously and they used the same self checkout system system. I knew I just needed to type my bday on their terminal to get it to sell, so I went n did it lol. Hey, self check out amirite? I figured fuck it, I'll do that part too I guess.
She finally noticed like right before I paid and took my beers and wouldn't let me pay. I was like here's my ID, I've been waiting like 5 minutes to show you. Manager showed up told me to leave, and never come back, it was a whole thing. Granted, I was 100% being a young , dumb prick, but I was annoyed with the lady not doing her job, and wasting my time. Having been on the other side of that terminal before, knowing how easy it was to do, I was super annoyed that she wasn't even acknowledging me trying to get her attention. Fun times lol.
Self checkout is useful when you only want a few things. Much faster.
If you're getting a full trolley, you'd need a barcode scanner to take round the shop with you. If you don't have that, it's faster to go with a manned checkout.
The theft is a feature, not a bug in my eyes!
Alcohol isn't so bad where I'm at, I just scan it first to give the worker some time to scan their badge and let me continue
I honestly only use self check out. I don't buy a ton in a single shopping trip and I just find it easier to do it myself since I bring my own bulky bags that go on the side of my bike. A lot easier for me in general and sucks some places are getting rid of it.
Interesting! Alcohol doesn't have a barcode there?
Here it does. But the self checkout lamp will go to red instantly and a clerk has to come to approve your age.
Trying to tell the pears and their variants and potatoes and their variants apart is such a pain in the ass without a barcode. Especially since the example pic is usually quite different, and like 10px on a 480p greased up, airgapped touchscreen. I hate self checkout. The only time I use it is when the store is open late at night. Which, I actually do like. Having stores open till 1am or 3am can be extremely handy, especially if you have an office job during the day and do night classes.
After a few times I memorized where the bread or fruit (w/o barcode) I usually buy is in the menu and am almost equally fast as an employee would be. So it just took me some time to adjust personally.
I bought beer last time I went through self checkout and of course it called some teenage girl over to check my ID; I'm pushing 60. I just said "No. I'm old enough to be your grandfather." She was fine with that.
Remember kids, if you see someone shoplifting or switching the barcodes at your big-box self-checkout: No you didn't.
Preach!
I'm lucky enough to not need to take the risks involved in order to get by, but I'll be damned if I'm going to fuck over someone that may be unluckier than me. Idgaf what it is, I'm fucking sergeant Schultz.
The way I see it, you're doing a public service...
Give yourself a pat on the back, you local hero! 🫡
My grandmother snitch on some poor bastard stealing crystal light at walmart. If someones stealing fucking crystal light from walmart theyre clearly in way worse than I am.
If I cared enough, I'd tell someone because I hate thieves, but I generally prefer to mind my own business. Same philosophy if I saw someone stealing from a small business.
Especially when these people aren't shoplifting big-ticket items like TVs. They're shoplifting things they're desperate for like food.
Oh - that I just don't care about. Do you care about the wage theft they're committing? It's at a far larger scale than any shoplifting.
Why are you so concerned with protecting a massive multi-billionaire-owned company plagued with ethical issues? Are those billionaire boots super-tasty or something?
I am not a smart man.
No they aren't they are gonna lean in even harder what a dumbass story. One time fixed cost will always win over paying people in perpetuity
Yeah I have trouble believing this. They just remodeled the Walmart near me and I bet there's 60 self checkout machines. There's like maybe 3-5 normal checkout lines in between the self checkout.
I saw a grocery store put in the best self checkout lanes I've seen, then take them out a couple years later because their customers didn't like them.
Things be weird sometimes.
Kroger here just added two more lanes of self-checkout. We won't use them. We're a family of 3. We buy a lot of groceries. Doing it by ourselves would take so much more time.
Our Kroger had two rows of mini self checkouts, 2x3, and adjacent it was a cashier checkout. They removed one of the rows of minis and replaced it and the subsequent with a conveyor self checkout instead, so 3 minis and 2 conveyors.
Now there are fewer places to check out, and the belted checkout is annoying as all hell to use. If you have 3 items it's wasteful to use it because you have to walk 5 feet to fetch your bags, and if you have a large cart of groceries you wouldn't want to self checkout anyway because it's a hell of a lot easier to have help.
I keep seeing stories every so often on Facebook about this. I feel like these stories just pop up to bring up engagement on the site. most stores in my area (Florida) have increased self checkout
Yeah I think they saw a couple of examples Of stores taking out the self checkout lanes and ran with them. Although you could say the theft that the self checkout lanes allow is a recurring expense, but that's probably not nearly as much as the saving that the machines give.
It isn't. Or at least it isn't as big of a problem as they are letting on. https://www.retaildive.com/news/retailers-crime-problem-numbers/699107/
Shrink has hovered around 1.5% (that's 1.5% of total sales...) And the NRF has been coy about the fact that 1/3 of that shrink is "administrative" issues - lost product, mis allocated, warehouse issues, broken in transit, etc.
Additionally, a little less than a third is from employee theft, and a the remaining 36% is external theft.
But since they lump mistakes and general admin issues in with theft, they get to claim a higher number whenever they complain very loudly so that they can redirect the conversation away from the massive increase in profits they have had, along with the increase in wage theft cases they are losing, as well as trying to cover up the fact they are closing "under performing" stores in poorer neighborhoods (which not limits access to people in those locations, but the store doesn't care, they dont buy stuff anyway...).
unexpected item in the bagging area. place items in the bagging area. unexpected item in the bagging area.
I'm thankful pretty much every store here deactivated that sensor shortly after installing self checkouts.
A Kroger near me recently updated their self checkouts and now they're way more sensitive, they view any hand movements on its little camera as "you just slipped something into the bag I'm calling the employee over", and you can't mute them anymore which is the lost infuriating for me. I have trouble doing things with a lot of noise, and having a loud ass computer yelling about everything it's doing makes my checkout take easily 3-4x as long. There is no benefit to disabling the mute button, it still screams for employees when something went wrong, and it only frustrates and irritates everyone who can hear it, employees included. I can't count how many times I've heard the employees complain about it too.
Ugh I had a grocery store with great self checkout and then they added the dumb sensor. Became worst experience. I assume it was intentional sabotage to the self checkout experience. Least that is what I would do.
Even worse, here in Canada at the Sobeys owned stores, you can opt to use your own reusable bag (plastic grocery bags are now outlawed) but if you do they prompt an employee to come check your bags. They never actually check, but if there isn't an attendant around you just have to wait there until they notice and end the prompt. I waited for 10 minutes the other day because the employee went off for a break or something.
Edit: spelling
Item removed from bagging area.
Is this really something people struggle with? I don't understand this complaint. I haven't actually heard that alert in decades.
Edit: thanks to the few of you who have answered. I'm not saying I don't have any problems with self checkout—the overhead camera always thinks I'm stealing the soft drink or prescription or whatever that I leave in my cart, for instance—but my problem isn't ever with the scale thing, even though that's always the joke everyone makes.
The closest grocery store closest to my house is the only self-checkout store around me that still uses scales and they’re awful. There are certain items it doesn’t pick up on and it forces you to bag your groceries after checking out, making everything slower. I avoid that place at all costs, even though it’s the closest to me.
In my experience, self-checkout started with the weight sensors, rather than adding them later. I've noticed some stores have a system now without the weight thing, which probably cuts down on confusing and time-consuming error situations, but it makes it seem chaotic. My parents use them in the most fucked up way - leave everything in the cart, scan stuff, bag it, then put it in the cart, and I'm just WHAT? Aren't they going to accuse you of stealing? Some walmarts aggressively pursue claims of theft from self checkout, like in the case of this lady who was awarded 2.1 million after being accused of stealing, which she said was not true. This article details the story of a lady who said she was arrested after not scanning things by accident, and the article notes "Sixty-two other people were cited and released by police at the same Tucson Walmart between January 2021 and April 2022."
During the civil trial, which lasted about three weeks, the judge criticized Walmart for the “intentional loss” of the security camera footage, according to court records. The judge, James T. Patterson, said that the court would advise the jury that the videotapes “were destroyed by the defendants with the intent” to deprive the plaintiff of the benefit of seeing them “and that the jury therefore is to presume that the content of the missing videos would be adverse” to the defendants.
Walmart also is starting to use 'AI' to detect self checkout theft, which I'm sure will be foolproof and work out great.
And if you're wondering which item causes the most problems, it's milk. O'Herlihy explains, "People find it hard to scan milk ... Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don't scan it."
What?
Anyway, I'm sure they love not paying employees to do this, but it seems like more trouble than it's worth.
From Tucson here: Walmart in town is pretty sketchy compared to the other places. We had someone light the chemical isle on fire on Christmas Eve that burnt down half the entire store lmao. Walmart sold itself as a low price retailer for so long that only low income people go there and with that there’s theft and then the classism of hiring armed guards during their high crime periods.
And if you're wondering which item causes the most problems, it's milk. O'Herlihy explains, "People find it hard to scan milk ... Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don't scan it."
Does milk not have a bar code?
If anything, I’d figure it would be produce items that would cause the most drama, but eventually you start to remember those codes. 4011 is bananas. 4799 is for tomatoes. 4065 is green peppers…
I love self-checkout because I bag things exactly like I want and I can get the process completed without having chat with the cashier or Karen out on the bagger for putting just two items in a large paper bag.
I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped or accused of stealing things, but then I usually choose the unit closest to the cashier and I leave all my items in the bagging area until I’m done. That said, I used to be a grocery store cashier, so I understand the process a little better than most, but it’s still easy to make mistakes.
Self checkout scanners are unbearably slow, and if you try to go any faster it’s “unexpected item in bagging area” and wait for the overworked assistant.
I refuse to be bossed around by shitty robots.
Condensation on milk barcodes causes scanning issues I've found
Probably because it sweats and the pure white nature might make the laser more reflective? Only thing I can think of.
Milk is frustrating to scan? I did it yesterday just fine...
The condensation over the barcode/potentially warped shape of the milk often makes it not scan on the first go. Seen it many times haha.
At my Walmart the employees don’t stop people from stealing food. They told me as much.
I believe it's policy at Walmart for the regular staff to not prevent theft at all. Loss prevention handles that. They'll build a case without pursuing at first, and then being down the hammer.
I keep hearing this and I wonder about how they do this. I mean how to they keep records of every shoplifter? Do the employees recognize the people every time they come in? How many shoplifters can they keep track of? Are they like "ah yeah it's shoplifter 687, put this video in his file"? Do they bother with people stealing an occasional item like basic clothing or food? Are they watching a single shoplifter over years, like what if they only steal once in a while and it's low value? I'm curious about this, I've never actually heard from anyone who was watched over a period of time and then prosecuted.
Target will wait for you to steal serval "inflated value mind you full profit plus..." thousand dollars of stuff before pursuing you legally. It's easier when it's large sums.
That's how it works for most stores in Canada.
"theft over" (aka theft over $5,000.00) can get you 10 years in federal prison, "theft under" is up to two years in provincial jail. That's a huuuge difference.
Also, more footage, more angles, easier to convict.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-334.html
Honestly, can you blame them?
Electronics, luxury items, other “nice to haves” maybe. But who wants to be the reason someone goes hungry?
Not to mention, they are getting paid dogshit wages.
Jokes on them, I shoplift at the staffed checkout too.
Walmarts's self checkout is the only one in my area that doesn't frustrate the hell out of me. I've stopped going to certain other stores simply because I don't like their self checkout systems.
I'm autistic. I always apparently seem weird to people. That means any time I use a self checkout, the minders stare at me because they think I'm about to steal something. It makes me nervous, and I start getting uncomfortable and self conscious, which I'm sure makes me seem even more suspicious. And either security or the automated system have triggered the "please wait for an associate" so many times. But they always look at the video and tell me "Sorry, this thing is just sensitive/weird/whatever excuse.", then leave me alone.
I'm not going to call it discriminatory, because I don't think it is? But it feels like I have to be on my best behavior or I'll get arrested because I was so focused on trying to pass as "normal" that I missed scanning a tomato. And for the record, I've never stolen anything, even when I was low on food and really needed some stuff I couldn't afford. Hell, I have forgotten to scan something once and went back in to pay for it.
Self checkout sucks, but it's normally still better than waiting in line and interacting face to face with a cashier.
It's easier said than done, but once I learned to stop giving a shit about what NTs think about me, my life in public got a lot better. I still get that from time to time but it's a lot less often these days.
I feel like a criminal the second I enter a store, I've felt like this for at least the past decade, it's like everyone is a suspect... Like damn I'm just here to buy milk and bread..
Walmart wants to do some sort of AI surveillance shit at their self-checkouts, I noped the fuck out of that and go to their clerks now.
I stopped taking my phone out at WalMart after I learned that their security cameras are so good that they can zoom in on your phone and read your text messages.
Weird. I generally don't mind self-checkout but Walmart's showing you a video of yourself so you can check yourself out while you're checking out yourself kinda creeps me out. And I don't even use the self checkout to steal.
Grocery store self checkout machines can be infuriating. The weight sensors are way too tightly monitored and often have the incorrect weight programmed. Every time I go to the main grocery store near me I need help from the employee due to their terrible sensors not detecting the weight of lighter items in the bagging area.
The Walmart self-checkout near me doesn't use the weight sensors, they're turned off. It makes checking out much easier. Also, they flow better, for instance, at Lowe's, you need to specifically press the "Pay Now" button to pay, but at Walmart you can just shove your card in when you're done scanning, and it starts the checkout process. At Lowe's you must choose between the print or email receipt, but at Walmart you can let the question time-out while you put the groceries back in the cart, and it will print the receipt. The Smith's self-checkout is even more clunky, and very chatty. I don't like it.
There are plenty of reasons to hate Walmart, but IMO, their self-checkout works better than the others I've tried.
Don’t get it. Sam’s and BJs both have scanning apps on the phone. Most amazing tech ever! Costco… HURRY UP! Also, Sam’s and Bjs don’t check my card because I WOULDNT BE ABLE TO BUY ANYTHING WITHOUT THE CARD ANYWAYS… Costco!!
It is a dumb bit of ceremony, but the door checker just glances at the card. You could roll in with a paper print out and be fine until the registers.
Still, enough people do stupidly wait until they are in the door threshold and then block the path while digging around, so they should get rid of it.
It's to make sure they didn't forget the card at home/in the car/etc, and not realize it until checkout
BJ’s doesn’t check anyone going in. You’re free to browse without a membership you just can’t buy anything.
At our Sam's we just walk right by that door checker. If you show a card they nod, but if you don't get out your card they ignore you
It’s so that you can’t share your card with friends. You specifically have to live at the same place and have proof when you add them to the account
As long as shrink stays below what they save by removing cashiers they will stay. It may be location specific removals at high shrink stores.
The only reason for Costco to do this would be theft prevention or to make sure members are the only ones using their cards.
Our Costco checks your member ID before you can use the self checkout.
Our Costco has started doing this since the pandemic. They didn't really do it much before. The crackdown is coming at a time where the price of everything is rising and they want more people to buy the membership instead of mooching off others who have.
Literally the opposite is happening. Look at any busy store: self checkout can handle like 10 people, compared to registers which are significantly less at any given time. Registers account for much less business, and corporations are going to try and get by the minimal amount of employees as possible to function. Handling physical cash also adds more complexity with tills having to be deposited, audited, and withdrawn daily.
I just wish more stores took a hybrid approach. Like fuck, regular checkout and self checkout don't have to be mutually exclusive. But all the stores around me with self-checkout never staff more than 1 MAAAAAYBE 2 regular cashiers.
what is actually happening is far worse then either of the scenarios. Bigger retail establishments such as Walmart is doing away with the brick and mortar stores in general in favor of online only warehouses. No walk in and grab 2 or 3 items, gotta buy it online if you want the item. They were just boasting about it on the Wire (Walmart's Associate Page not the news site) a few weeks back.
Replace them with “no chit chat” lanes. I’m just buying some pasta, I don’t want to talk to you.
But then how will Margaret, the 80 year old lady who can retire but doesn't want to because she has no friends or family and therefore nobody to talk to except for her captive customers, get her social interaction?
I avoid self-checkout as often as possible. In my mind, that’s taking a job away from a physical person, it’s a cost-savings for the retailer, but customers never see any benefit from it. I choose the person checkout everytime as my little bit of solidarity with my fellow humans.
I'm the opposite. I use self-checkout as often as possible, because it means I have to interact with as few people as possible. I loathe people being forced to ask me how I'm doing, because we both know they don't care. Or when they ask "Did you find everything?"- does it fucking matter? Either I did, which is why I'm checking out, or I didn't, in which case it doesn't fucking matter because thanks to their shitty implementation of JIT their stock has been converted from on-prem inventory to rolling warehouse deliveries every single day. Just let me get what I want and get out.
I see massive benefits from being able to get out of the store quickly when I am done instead of getting stuck behind some old person with a ton of coupons to argue about.
It helps that they sorted out the oversensitive weight checking and still staff a couple of lanes when it is busy so people have a choice.
Have you considered switching to pickup when you can? pick what you want from the comfort of your home, drive to the store at the designated time, an employee has picked all your goods and it is brought out to you. Same price for you, more labor for the company to pay for.
I really don’t like doing pickup for most trips because I care about the quality and ripeness of my produce and also purposefully select the furthest away expiry dates for certain things I go through slowly, it becomes a lot to ask someone else to do if there are 20 comment lines for these little details, but if I don’t it just results in wasted food and money :/
Either way the company is getting your money.
But using a real person cost the company more, in theory
I also avoid it but due to not being good at it. I would hate to be accused of shop lifting due to a mistake. It would be a hassle to straighten out.
So, you just want the poor to continue being poor...
yeeeeah. They'll have to hire people to work the checkout lanes in that case... which means paying enough to compete with other employers who offer more. Case in point, here it's like 12/hr here to work in a grocery, vs 16/hr at Amazon. But even if they do this, people will still shoplift. Self checkout didn't create the problem, it rather treats everyone like a suspect.
The grocery I go to never has more than one staffed checkout lane at any time, typically a very long line of people too old, too stubborn, or with too many items to do it themselves. During the day it's 8 or 16 self-checkout lanes (minus broke ones), and they close in the evening, so everyone is forced to use the slow staffed checkout.
I fundamentally hate self-checkouts because they were an attempt to eliminate an essential job in the company. I refuse to use them. Frustrares my wife and stepdaughter, but it is my little way to give the corporations the middle finger and force them to have to employ people.
I don't get what the issue is with eliminating unnecessary jobs. It doesn't create any extra work for the customer (you have to place all items on the conveyer and put them back into the cart either way), it isn't offloading any extra work to the other employees and it saves anyone involved a fuckton of time.
Fair! My mom always refused to use them.
I didnt for the longest time, until the day my friend went through self c/o and took about two minutes, while I took 15 min in the slow lane. Which honestly was less about the employees and more about shoppers who cant figure out how to pay for the two carts worth groceries they got...
I am on a fierce crusade against scanning your receipt to be "granted" exit through the gates. I'm not playing their stupid fucking game, I force the gates open every time as a matter of principle.
Lol, stores think they have a right to hold me in the store against my will unless I dance their little dance? Suuuure, now watch me leave.
Wait what that’s a thing
if you pay a membership (costco, sams, etc), they are allowed to stop you at the door and 'check' your receipt.
other stores, just say 'no thanks' and keep walking, or have visible earbuds in and be jammin' out the door.
I just say no thanks have a nice day and keep walking.
I don't use self checkouts because I hate trying to get those fucking bags open.
Also give cashiers chairs.
just bring a backpack or some other bag.
i used to carry a backpack all the time when i lived in the city and rode the bus or train everywhere, including to grocery stores, target, walmart and the like. never once had a problem from workers in a store. this was the 80s-90s, times were 'different' then, as people would say. of course, looking 'mostly' caucasian probably helped somewhat. today, though, i would probably get hassled at most stores in those same cities, if i carried a backpack while i shopped.
I guess there is good and bad with either style. I generally prefer the self checkout because I can bag my own stuff
We really need a code of etiquette for them, though. Trip to the store this morning, and they were down to 3 self-check stations from usual 10 with literally a dozen people in line. Including one couple with a cart full of a week's groceries and one lady trying to win coupon roulette. Four other people cycled through the third scanner while those two piddled away the day.
Here in Denmark, it's becoming more and more common to be able to scan your items with your own phone using the store's app while you go through the store, and you can bag everything straight from the shelves.
You then pay by credit card, also with your phone, scan a QR at a designated exit, and you're good to go.
They have random checks, but they've only been about 1/20 for me.
I used this as a pilot program in Pittsburgh when I lived there. It was a hand scanner running some sort of Android based OS but largely the same thing. You scan your store card to unlock a scanner, scan your stuff as you walk through the store putting things in bags, then you walk to a kiosk, pay, then walk out.
I used to get so many dirty looks from people who thought I was stealing a whole cart of groceries until they saw the receipt print out.
Doing it directly via an app would have been even better!
None of our stores here bag your stuff anymore so it doesn't matter what line you pick.
My costco "self checkout" is really just an employee scanning your things and then you box them. Does move quicker than the standard lanes, though.
I went to Costco, did self checkout and an employee walked up and offered to do it and I was just what? Didn't really make sense to me.
Same at my Costco. They have 6 or maybe even 9 "self checkouts" and each is manned by an employee who scans everything without removing anything from the cart. Its basically a compact checkout. Recently was in another area and the Costco had true self checkouts with weight sensors messing up and requiring employee overide and all. It was a pain in the ass.
I think it depends. Sometimes they are scanning everything, sometimes they just scan the large items.
If they would let you use the handheld scanner and not remove things from your cart, it would go so much faster. I used to do that at Sam’s a decade ago; dunno if it changed. I still load my cart barcode up on the off chance one of the cool employees is running self checkout because they’ll scan my entire cart in 30s like I wish I could.
I always load the cart barcode up when doing 10-15 item runs at the grocery Costco (a small one that was by my house... groceries and office supplies only). I tried doing that a 'big Costco' recently and they were like what? Don't you want us to bag them? And suggested I put it all on the conveyor.
Prefer self checkout because no talking and I'm typically faster than most cashiers. Nothing sucks more than waiting 3 mins while a new cashier tries to figure out if you handed then a turnip or a rutabaga lmao.
You really think the average person knows how to ring up produce better than the cashier? I'd much rather interact with a real person anyway, it makes it feel like you're supporting an actual business and employees instead of a computer with food behind it.
Which cashier? I've seen some that are worse than me (i've only cashiered fast food which is different enough that I wouldn't expect to be good), and some that are great.
Several times, but not recently, Walmart self-checkout machines would reset after I scanned the first item, I dunno why. But I figured I did my part by scanning it, so I didn't re-scan it, even though I knew it had reset. I could just play dumb, which isn't hard for me, if anyone asked. No one ever asked, but they upgraded the software, and it stopped doing that.
The employees seem a bit happier as attendants than cashiers, so I guess that's a good thing. I don't know how many lost their jobs to the machines, though.
I'll admit that I'm happier with self-checkout, because I almost never need to wait in line anymore.
I'm not sure how many lost their jobs to the machines at all. At a glance there appear to be about 4 attendants per self-checkout area, which is at least a dozen self-checkout machines at our local Walmart, so they all stay busy enough what with telling the machine I'm old enough to buy beer and such.
Minus the self-checkout machines I could imagine 2 of the 4 clerks running the usual "not enough cashiers" play that stores got famous for, with the other 2 being sent to the back for whatever duties. Possibly they aren't hired at all.
If my questionable observations are accurate, then that means that maybe Walmart is getting more throughput, with everyone ringing themselves up, but maybe they aren't spending a bunch less on labor.
I can't see anybody going back on the self-check machines, though. Not after all that money spent, and the decade that retailers have spent waiting for customers to learn how to do the job themselves, especially the older folks. That was a bitter change to buy, so it's wishful thinking that we're going right back to human checkout only.
Hell, Aldi just installed a couple self checkout machines here. They were the one holding out, too, since an Aldi cashier zooms the groceries through so fast it's tough to justify. Oh, and they're trying to have that one person, with shoppers in front of them, also be the attendant for the self-check machines. I double scanned something by accident and the clerk had to stop their own line to help me by pushing a button from way over there and then back to scanning they went.
Come on, Aldi.
I heard about strategies to print your own barcodes and stick them on merch to get a "discount". And that was intended to fool cashiers.
Imagine if I don't have to think about a cashier doing this transaction. $2 steaks for everyone!
You’d need to figure out a similarly weighted item. The majority have a lookup table of “this barcode is this weigh range” which prevents scanning a single almond and putting a TV down.
Interesting. I did not know that.
Yes finally burn them all down let me grab my sledgehammer I'll help
I love self-checkouts.
I also absolutely hate multi-line setups. There should be one line that feeds into all register. I don't want to have to gamble on which register won't get held up by something when I'm on my way out.
Those overly negative comments often come from USA. I've never had any major problems with self checkout in Europe and I generally go there as it's faster and you don't have to race against the cashier. Of course some chains have worse self checkouts, some have better but overall many people like it a lot. Even some older people who are not tech savvy use them.
It's funny how divided a topic this is.
Could just be my area but the machines always fail in some way or another.
Give me 10%off if I am doing the job of an absentee cashier... Always cool seeing many checkouts all decked out in gear with noone there to run them. Ever.
OR, even better, use some decades old tech and spend a penny to put RFID tags on everything so I can just run my cart through and verify the list of stuff and click Yes, No, Maybe.
Somewhat related.. is it just me or are liquor stores the best at this? I never even stop moving and I'm out. Then i go next door to the pet store to grab some animal chow and I stand in line for 10mins because just one register of 6 is staffed.
At least we can order everything online for the most part now.
Preach
I hate self-service checkouts SO MUCH. Especially as my local supermarket has phased out ones that take cash. On the other hand it is cost-effective being able to put artisan cheese through as potatoes.
I really hate this crap. Pay people to ring up and bag my groceries. Heaven knows you're charging enough for them that you should be offering me this courtesy.
Different strokes for different folks; I much prefer to quickly check myself out rather than waiting in line for someone to check my stuff out for me while dragging me into small talk and packing my bags in the most illogical way conceivable.
If you have the privilege of being able to walk to and from your grocery store then self checkout is great. I get why people hate it in suburbia tho
I used to hate self checkout. I was a cashier at a grocery store back in 2004-2005 and I found self check out slow and finnicky.
I've gotten used to them now and it seems like newer ones have resolved most of the speed and weight sensing issue. Now I prefer them with small trips.
My biggest problems now are that I still need a person for booze and coupons. If I could just scan my damn ID when I'm buying beer, and then scan and insert my own coupons, I'd be set.
Scanning your own ID probably won't be a thing since it won't be able to determine whether the ID belongs to you or not.
I was shocked a few weeks ago that I had to get an assistant override for buying DayQuil. I mean I guess it makes sense but I would have gone through a regular cashier lane if I had known. They should be able to scan your ID considering most of them have cameras on them now.
The dayquil thing totally threw me for a loop once, too. It was before self check out, and I thought the cashier was asking for my club card and said no thanks. It took a second for her to explain.
There are a few places that let you self checkout booze. Don’t ask me how it’s legal, but they do it.
I rtfa. For all the wrong reasons of course, not because we’re not on their payroll so why should we give them free labor?
I like them because it means I don’t have to talk to people. Sadly they did this only to save on salaries so I guess that I’m ok with them going away since it will create jobs for people.
Good.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The backlash against self-checkout is growing, and stores are starting to dial back on the technology after it exploded over the past few years.
Customers at Booths also frequently misidentified which fruits and vegetables they were buying when prompted by self-checkout machines.
One study of retailers in the United States, Britain and other European countries found that companies with self-checkout lanes and apps had a loss rate of about 4%, more than double the industry average.
Stores have tried to limit losses by tightening self-checkout security features, such as adding weight sensors.
But additional anti-theft measures also lead to more frustrating “unexpected item in the bagging area” errors, requiring employees to intervene.
Wegmans last year ended a mobile app that allowed customers to scan, bag and pay for groceries while they shopped after reporting losses.
The original article contains 602 words, the summary contains 132 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Back when I was doing a weekly shopping trip on my bike with panniers, I tried self-checkout once when the cashiers were busy. Never again. The tall bags just screwed with the sensors too much. Now I'm maybe a bit more inclined to use it because I moved to a house just a quick walk to the store. It can make sense to just dump all of the items on the weighing platform and put them in my backpack and reusable bags later.
A lesson for AI enthusiasts.
I'm an AI enthusiast and I don't know why people are down voting you here. Automated systems are great, but you run the risk of just doing the status quo faster, and removing the social element.