- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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I was cool with using them (less social interaction, scan and bag at my own pace), but over time I’m getting lazier and lazier
I never understood the “less social interaction” argument. Cashiers don’t care if you go through the whole interaction with them without making eye contact and only saying what’s absolutely necessary for the transaction. Plus, self checkouts are very picky and if you mess anything up even a little bit they start loudly inviting someone to come help you anyway.
A human at the other end of the exchange forces you to think about that human, to consider that human, and to acknowledge the existence of that human, whether they speak or not. Don’t have to feel that way with a machine.
Yes, some people are that bad that even silent interaction produces anxiety. It’s why I prefer emails and texts instead of live phone calls. I can communicate on my own time after thinking it through and not feel obligated to respond immediately (that’s what Asperger’s does to a MF)
It’s not about whether they actually care. It’s about whether I’m worried they might care. It’s very stressful for neurodivergent people.
Standing near someone is too much social interaction for me and I can do the self checkout blindfolded.
Well, some days I just fell more comfortable not interacting at all with a cashier if possible,
Regarding machine issues, yes, they sometimes ruin the flow, but it’s something occasional.
I love self-checkouts.
But what I love even more is having one single line for all lanes. It’s ridiculous that customers have to guess which lane will move the fastest.
Making a single line is the best thing self-checkouts have introduced around here.
Also, if they won’t bag my stuff for me, then I might as well be at the self-checkout. And since they don’t offer plastic bags at most places around here, most don’t bag your stuff for you.
If there are multiple lines and they won’t bag my stuff, I’ll go somewhere else that has self-checkout.
I don’t recognize these pain points. I always use the self checkout and it’s usually quick and painless. My experience is.
- Collect your wares, placing them directly into the bags along the way.
- Blip your id (card or qr code on phone)
- Blip your payment card.
- Walk out
Every once in a while I get caught in a random check, which is kind of a pain, but it’s so infrequent that it is acceptable.
Is this not how it usually works?
Is this not how it usually works?
I want to shop without them generating a profile of me. I want to pay with cash. I don’t even want them to know who I am. And I don’t want random checks…
Fortunately, I have never seen your scenario in Germany where I’m living…
Are you Dutch? I recall an old NJB video describing how Dutch supermarkets worked like this. (Plus, Martin is a name I associate with the Netherlands…)
But no. Most often, you put stuff in your trolley or basket, then when you get to the checkout, you scan the things and bag them yourself one-by-one, then pay.
Here in Australia, one of our two main supermarket chains in the last 2 years rolled out something similar to what the Netherlands has had for at least half a decade. You use their app on your phone and scan things with the app as you go, before paying through the app and scanning a QR code at the exit.
The other main chain, and the two main smaller chains, have made no moves to follow, so you’re stuck with a long line for a small number of open checkouts, or the self-checkout where you have to scan everything after you get to the checkout.
I live in Sweden. The system in the Netherlands sounds similar to what we have. There are also wireless scanners you can use throughout the store if you don’t want to use your phone.
In 🇫🇮 these mostly are hybrids: conventional checkouts plus a variable nr. of self-checkout points. Some chains have also portable scanners but only recently (I recall that in 🇸🇪 they have existed for years).
Based on my own N of 1 -experience I use the “human check out” slightly more often than machine. Why? Hmmm. The conveyor belt makes everything roll a bit smoother ;D
The BBC article, I understood, was maybe more about the totally or almost totally cashier-less stores.
My local shop around the corner doesn’t even require scanning a card or anything like that. Just get the handscanner at the entrance by pressing the button on the screen. Scan your shit and put it in the bag, go to the self checkout, put the scanner in the machine, touch your phone to pay and it’s done. I love it, I can be in and out in about 1 minute if I only need a couple of things. They’ve put in about 10 self checkout machines in the place of 3 old fashioned checkouts. Usually there is only one oldskool checkout open with a large line of old people.
Only irritating thing is people with like 100 items scanning all their shit at the checkout (if you don’t want to use the handscanner), it takes forever. I don’t get why people do that, but luckily there are enough self checkouts there is always one free.
Wait, you don’t have to scan every item at the checkout?
At least here in the UK a lot of larger supermarkets give you the option of taking a little handheld scanner with you and doing it as you shop. When you go to the till you just scan a barcode that’s on the till and it connects the till to the scanner so you can pay for everything. I don’t personally use it because I’m too disorganised a person to pack as I go and also remember to scan everything, but it’s fairly popular. It typically exists as an alternative way of using the self checkouts, the option to scan everything at the checkout itself is still there
Some places near me trialed that. It got dropped post covid because “forgetting” to scan things was an even bigger problem than with regular self checkout.
No, we (most supermarkets in Sweden) get a wireless scanner handle that we have with us in the store. So we scan each item when we take it from the shelf and put it in the bag/cart. When we get to the self checkout we just put the handle back and pay.
Not for me. Take in consideration that I don’t do a lot of shopping. Two of the maybe four times times I used a self check-out last year;
- So I go to the self check-out. One of my items is on clearance. I scan it. It shows full price. turns out I needed to scan a different bar-code for the clearance. However, I can’t remove the already scanned bar-code from the list, so now I need to call assistance.
- My kids drink a lot of coke zero, so when it goes on sale I usually buy a lot of it. In this case, I took all that’s left in the store. I scan one bottle, do a quick count and adjust the number of bottles accordingly. I place the bottle in my cart and realize I’ve counted one too many. I can’t take it off, and now need to call assistance.
This sounds like a terrible user experience. Is this a case of “we have implemented a terrible self checkout system and now no one likes to use it”?
It works like that for me too. Even better if your list is short enough to avoid getting a cart.
Ok now I am curious where you live that you have to provide ID to shop. Here in the US we scan the items and then swipe our payment card, the ID is only used to check your age for tobacco and alcohol purchases which can’t be sold to minors. An employee has to come look at the ID to make sure a minor hasn’t borrowed someone else’s, so it doesn’t even get scanned. Employees just swipe their work badge and confirm that they checked your age.
As for the pain, a lot of self checkout systems have very limited space and can be awkward to run all your items through. Manned stations have the conveyor so you can unload multiple items from your cart at a time to be scanned. They also have more end space so you can have room to bag everything if you are doing a big shopping trip.
I think they mean ID as store loyalty card and/or membership card. Not actual government issued ID.
I think they may be talking about the “discount” tracker cards. The ones which you fill out an application to get, so you can get the special “discount” (really what the price used to be).
I would assume they meant something like a CostCo proof of membership ID.
This is how self checkouts at CostCo work in the US, however they are pretty good about having plenty of regular cashiers available as well.
Over here stores are increasing their prices because people steal at the self-checkout. So they reduce costs by not having cashiers but then increase prices due to theft. Quite some logic.
You’d assume it’s an easy balance to make: if (saving on cashiers - loss due to theft) > 0 implement self-checkout else don’t implement.
Insurance is more likely to pay for shrink than paychecks.
Over here they increase their costs because we have no choice but to pay it.
and frankly the amount they lose is nothing to the amount they steal.
Oh no, did your attempt to labor costs and make shoppers do more of the labor that checkers used to do end up increasing shrink?
Oh no, how awful for you that you aren’t able to properly afford more *checks notes… Stock Buybacks.
This is how I imagine retailers complaining about this.
Not only that, but the reduced shrink during Covid, tucked up to “normal” levels… but this was then presented as a 100pct increase compared to last year… and thus a huuuge increase.
I mean to be fair, everyone pulled that shit.
The jobs numbers tanking during COVID because everyone had to be let go or furloughed apparently has nothing to do with Biden “bringing America more jobs faster than any previous President” bullshit.
Nah dude, the jobs that left just came back, you didn’t do shit to make that happen, Biden.
As a Democrat voter, makes me sick how hard they are back to pushing “The economy is doing great, you whiners need to just fucking vote for us already, all right!” while holding Trump and Fascism over our heads like a veritable Sword of Damocles. They don’t feel the need to do more because it’s easier to sit on their haunches and yell “But if you don’t vote for us, Trump will turn the US into a fascist state” as if that isn’t an implicit admission that they won’t do anything to stop Trump if he wins (even illegitimately!!!) and will let him run roughshod over US citizens as punishment for not voting Democrat sufficiently enough.
Unstaffed tills were supposed to revolutionise shopping.
They were?
We have those by me still, I love them. Except when they check the weight of every item so you can’t have one person scan and another bagging.
I worked every position in a grocery store during high school and college. I am now unwilling to work any of them without being paid to do so. And my current rate is many multiples of what they pay their employees.
I wonder if this sentiment was common when the introduced the stores where you have to go and pick up the products instead of telling someone what you want.
Part of me wishes the old dry good / mercantile shops were still a thing in my area. I still make occasional trips to stand-alone butchers, bakeries, green grocers, florists, and delis but if I need shelf stable stuff my only choices are supermarkets or convenience stores.
Same. And knowing that I have been an efficient cashier in the past makes the awkwardness of the self checkout super frustrating. If you have the items coming down the belt and are in a groove and so it regularly, you can get through a cart of items so fast. Between the poor UI and theft deterrence the self checkout is way slower.
Ans what happens to the people whose jobs are eliminated by the self checkout? Yeah, it’s a crap job, I know, I’ve done it. But if the only alternative in our current system is more homelessness and absolutely desperate poverty then I’ll skip the self checkout. I’d love to live in the glorious future where machines do all the grunt work and people are free to spend their time in better ways. But it seems humanity can’t have nice things.
This is the second article in the last month I’ve found here on the Fediverse pronouncing the death of self checkout and honestly I just don’t see it. Most of the stores around me have only just recently expanded their self-checkout areas and I vastly prefer using it unless I’ve got more than 25 items.
I’d honestly probably stop going to a store that decided to not allow me to check out on my own. Small talk and having to make a minimum wage worker suffer through it is just not something I want when I’m running to the store for a gallon of milk. I vastly prefer being able to throw in some earbuds, get my shopping, check out, and get out to having to interact with anyone while I’m just trying get my shit.
This is probably a difference between countries, but personally I love it here in the Netherlands. I go to the store after work multiple times a week and I have yet to encounter a queue or problem that stalled me longer than 1-2 minutes. Usually I can just directly walk to a self-checkout machine, check out my stuff, pay by holding my debit card (or phone) against the payment terminal, and be on my way. I like it way more than the old way of doing things, because I now have time to properly pack my bag and I don’t have to talk to anyone. It’s also way more space efficient. There’s even the option to take a scanner with you so you can scan while shopping, though I have yet to try that.
I hate self-checkout. It’s just annoying and a downgrade from an actual. cashier. I’ll use it when I have to. But really it’s just terrible.
However, scan as you shop. That’s just great. Put your bags in the trolley, scan and put it straight in the bag. Go to checkout machine, pay and your stuff is already bagged.
Self-checkout systems are already old fashioned. Most stores in my town have apps for that now, where customers scan items as they bag them in their own bags while walking through the store and then just beep out. This removes the need for a queue, the payment terminal, the receipt and the stupid exit gate. Customers are allegedly randomly checked, but I’ve never seen that.
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FYI, your purchases are already thoroughly tracked like that starting as soon as you walk in the store, app or not.
You do the work for the company and pay them! Fuck self-checkout!!
The value added by a cashier is not worth the amount of time I expend waiting for them to become available. Self checkout is a win for me and for the retailer.
You are free to wait for a full-service cashier if you like. I’d rather be on my way.
Realize that many elite schools are pay to win and these business failures make sense.
I treat self-checkout as a game with 2 goals:
- Make it through the process without getting any help.
- Do it as fast as a trained cashier.
In a good season, my batting average for #1 might be .300, which would not be bad were the game baseball. As far as #2 is concerned, I have never come close. It’s like I throw 30 mph pitches. Things get real when I’m trying to look up bananas or something and the helper comes up behind me. “It’s 4198. Here, let me do it.” Thanks, I already lost #2 and you just made me lose #1…again.
