I personally really like self checkout. Even with a full cart im in and out significantly faster than most everyone else. I dont get how people get tripped up at them but my god Is it so many. I would like to have the option to remove something I accidentally scanned without needing someone though. We finally got passed the bag scale issues this is the next hurdle!
As a side note I only do self check with a full cart because im a late night shopper I would never in a million years do it during busy hours.
I like self check because it’s less interaction with people, mostly. Also, you can rip 30 packs of PBR near the handle and just scan the can instead on the box.
A 30-pack for a six-pack price is a good deal.
But yes, they are shifting labor to customers.
I’m surprised that:
- You don’t get flagged for a human to check your ID
- The weight doesn’t flag you
I hate how everyone with a billion items in a cart goes through the smaller, 1-3 items checkouts that have no belts, while people with 1-3 items are all at the belted lanes. Why are y’all so bass ackwards?
What kills me is when I’m behind an old person attempting to use a check like it’s 1989. I haven’t been to a grocery store that accepts checks in the past decade, I just don’t understand why they think it will suddenly change back to how it was, and they always act angry and confused when stores don’t accept their checks even though like I said I haven’t seen a store that accepts checks in the past decade
I haven’t seen a single grocery store that doesn’t accept checks. Still a thing here in western Washington.
Holy shit, cheques (as we spell it in the UK). I’d not seen one in decades, my bank stopped issueing chequebooks more than 20 years ago but they’ll still print a one-off cheque for you if you ask. Then I spent some time in France and they still use the goddamn things and it is an absolute ordeal - I swear they spend two solid minutes passing the thing back and forth between the customer and cashier, taking turns to make little amendments. I understand that in France a cheque has a lot more legal clout than in the UK.
If you’re there for a bag of brown sugar or a carton of half and half self checkout makes sense.
I’ve used scanners outside of this retail environment and I know how to pack both a vehicle and a box well. But the awkward height, shape, configuration of self checkout and its bags or lack thereof turns me into a fingerless, blind man trying to use a calculator.
Never had this issue, and always think it’s incredibly convenient when a supermarket has a self check-out.
But then, I also live in Denmark, so maybe self check-outs are different here?
I’m average height. The checkouts are so low, I have to bend a bit to set down items or pack. There’s no counter space for packing a bag, like at Aldi. Instead it’s this low, low carousel wheel of bags that means bend/straighten for each item, heavy or otherwise. The top of the bag carousel is at the height needed for comfortable packing.
Some locations do not provide bags, you have to wait for the attendant to get one or call for one, depending.
The only place I’ve been in set up to bag items properly and without back strain is Aldi.
Some locations show a monitor of you on screen, being recorded, so you feel like a criminal just being anywhere near a self checkout. Bad vibes.
I remember self checkout arriving in 2008 when I was living in the arse-end of Ireland. Took quite a few years for it to arrive anywhere in France, I guess because we could clearly see it was gonna kill more jobs… anyway, they didn’t take over but for little old me who is used to it, it’s a godsend when I’m faced with families doing their weekly shopping or, worse, pensioners…
And yet, somehow, after all these years, I regularly meet people who indeed seem to have never faced one. No hate on them, I just find it amazing! And I always wonder what suddenly pushed them over, made them decide “today is the day I face my fear and confront the Beast!”
No matter what line I pick at the supermarket, that’s the line that will have a technical issue, a grandma with 200 coupons, a guy who wants to scan 50 lottery tickets, and a price check that takes 10 minutes.
Also no matter what spot I pick in line, that’s the spot where people decide to pass through
That the saving grace of self-checkout lines; it tends to be one line for a dozen checkouts. So the dense fucker claping their block of cheese to their chest - in the manner of fleeing refugee carrying a child - while the machine repeatedly begs them to “please place the item in the bagging area” only slows down the line a little bit, but the Hutt going supernova at the cashier because they can’t use a different supermarket’s app’s discount code for 15% off Kleenex on a 3L bottle of Pepsi and demanding to see the manager grinds everything to a halt until they’re adequately soothed.
My local grocer doesn’t have self checkout but they do have 12 item express and 20 item express with dual/quad lanes.
So you end up with one line and 4 registers blasting through express people.
I often make 2 grocery runs a week. A big one on weekends and a mid week one for fresh protein and whatever Im missing until the next trip.
🤣🤣🤣
If there is a cashier available, then I refuse to use self checkout.
These things seem to be meant for people buying a few items, not for 250 items a family of 4 would have In a cart.
This is the most true thing anyone has ever said.
Either that, or I have to wait for an employee myself for the stupidest reason, i.e. that I’ve brought a canvas bag that they have to verify I didn’t steal.
Your supposed to weigh the bag first, at least in some stores.
Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove unexpected item in bagging area. An associate has been alerted.
You sometimes have to press a button for using your own bag first
I know
myI am, same thing here, but even when I do, if it’s a bag previously bought from the same place, they usually want to verify. Maybe the system’s watching for the store logo on the bag. Most likely they have cameras watching the self-service checkouts to make sure you don’t do anything funky, i.e. weighing apples and selecting carrots on the screen.if it’s a bag previously bought from the same place, they usually want to verify.
Fucking hell, where do you live where stores treat customers like potential shoplifters stealing bags costing 50 pence?
Wait until I tell you about the coin-operated shopping carts.
This has nothing to do with stealing. It is about not leaving them everywhere.
This has mostly to do with not leaving them everywhere, but if they’re randomly left in the parking lot, some people will happily steal them. Plus this was in the same notion of not trusting people to do what’s expected.
Your comments are completely irrelevant to what I have said.
That’s why I use my Walmart bag at king soopers
This is the kind of person that complains about people only going 55Mph in a 40-50 zone. Like wtf mate. What’s wrong with you people? Everybody’s gotta go through the same thing, so mind your business. You ain’t special.
Move your arse and let other people use self checkout. You ain’t special either.
Sir, check your privilege. We’re all in the line. Everybody goes through the line. Get over it.
You are not privileged either so move your arse quicker and let other people use the till.
Removed by mod
The problem is that, at least over here, every supermarket chain seems to have vastly different machines.
It’s irritating for sure. They’ve been around for long enough that 95% of shoppers should know how to use them.
I remember before these things came out. It would typically take forever to get through the line to have a cashier ring you up. There was always an old person in front of you that wanted to pay via check, which slowed the line down even more. How about the guy using his 2-way, on speaker, in front of you? That fucking chirp going on and on. What’s that? Someone wants to buy a lotto ticket, which means the cashier has to go to another counter to get the ticket and come back. Next, the soccer mom has 20 coupons she wants to use, half of which are expired or are for a different store. It was so much fun!
I much prefer the self checkouts. I can get through those within a few minutes. It sucks that those cashier jobs have mostly been eliminated. But that’s the price of progress I suppose.
Losing local jobs and making the customer do their own service, while their salary goes to the corp executives, yeah “progress” indeed.
Try going to an Aldi checkout line.
I’m far happier waiting in line with how absurdly fast they train and empower their cashiers to be then I ever have been at Kroger or Walmart. By now all the cashiers recognize me too because they’re paid well enough to reduce churn like that, and I don’t even get ID checked for alcohol most of the time.
It’s a breath of fresh air after being forced to wait in line for self checkout at any store where everyone is slow. Even myself, and even you, because the machines don’t let you go fast because they don’t trust you or I. It just feels faster because you’re doing something the whole time.
Self checkout isnt automation, its YOU doing the job instead of an employee.
I don’t follow that argument. Am I really doing actual work? Spending 5-10 minutes scanning some items and then paying?
Is this some sort of “principle of the matter” thing? Because it seems like one of those arguments for arguments sake.
If you went to a cashier, you still have to put your items on the conveyer belt. The only thing the cashier is doing is scanning the items and placing them in bags. Most people pay by card, which again is something that you do yourself.
I don’t buy the whole “YOU doing the job” nonsense.
What part of it is automated though? Im not trying to make a point about whats better, self checkout or cashier, only saying all the tasks are still done by humans.
Perhaps I worded that wrongly.
Fun fact: This is why a huge amount of people don’t use self-checkout despite it potentially saving a lot of time. They are afraid the person behind them is going to judge them like this while trying it for the first time.
Super fun fact, the people who aren’t idiots at the self checkout, are not notable and therefore are not noted. It’s the morons who stand out.
Just like with driving. The guy in front is always too slow, and the guy behind is always going too fast. Because you don’t notice when the inverse is true.
I avoid self checkout for different reasons.
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I’m not getting a discount while I have to do more work and the supermarket less.
-
I take extra responsibility, if I forget to scan one item I could get in actual trouble during a random check.
Further:
- Most self-checkouts are too small and unwieldy to hold two shoppings bags when you’re packaging a week worth of purchases.
- You still need an employee to come over and certify that you’re over 18 if you buy alcoholic drinks, and there’s usually just one for many tills who is usually busy with somebody else.
- I like to pack my weekly shopping in specific ways (cold items together, fragile stuff on top, weight balanced) and whilst in a normal checkout I can do packaging in parallel with somebody else doing the checkout plus already place things roughly ordered on the threading band to the cashier, in the self-checkout it’s just me and things are in whatever order it went into the trolley so it takes at least twice as long.
- They often have quirks, such as for example the one I used more recently would not let me start unless I put a bag in the output compartment first, so I needed to have or buy a bag even though I was buying just 1 item (mind you this might have just been trying to force people to buy a bag, since many forget to bring one - in other words, structuring the software to force people to spend money which is a form of enshittification).
- They’re non standard and each store has a different model, with different physical structure and different software with a different UI with buttons in different places and often different quirks, so anything you learn beyond the basics about how to use one effectively is often non-translatable to self-checkouts in different stores.
- They often don’t take cash. Cash is good, it means your buying habits are not in some database somewhere and used for things like having an AI estimate how much an airline company can wring out of you for a ticket for a flight or a Health Insurer assessing your risk profile and upping your price, it works always even during outages (of power, of your bank, of payment processors) and studies have shown people save money if they pay in cash because they tend to spend less (something about the physicality of parting ways with your notes and coins makes people be more wary of paying more than if it’s just a number on a screen).
I’m happy to see someone who dislikes them as much as me.
I recently went to the self checkout because I was in a hurry and only had 5 items (one of them ice cream).
One item (croissant) didn’t have a bar code, I accidentally selected chocolate croissant. When I wanted to correct this, I had to click 3 menus just to delete an item. After I deleted it, the counter locked. It told me to wait for assistance. After a while I just picked up my 5 items and went to a different self checkout counter. Still nobody came to unlock the other machine.
There’s a good argument to be made from the point of view of customer convenience and expediency for using self-checkouts to pay for a small number of items, but even then most existing implementations of that concept are so fucking bad that there are all sorts of stupid problems, like my case of the thing not working unless I had a bag (it literally had no button to just skip it) and yours were a normal human mistake is complex to correct even though the users are amateurs and hence naturally more likely to make mistakes hence the thing should have been designed differently.
I’ve actually worked with UX/UI designer at several points in my career, and one thing that pisses me off about most self-checkouts is just how bad their UX/UI design is.
That so many self-checkout implementations are like that is probably explained by, having moved the costs of wasting time to the side of client, those businesses are not financially incentivized to make the self-checkouts efficient to use, which probably also explains all manner of weird choices in everything from their shape to even the order of their menus - in a manned checkout it’s their problem because wasted is money being paid to a teller for nothing, so if it’s bad they fix it, whilst in self-checkouts it’s not their problem so they don’t care.
This is also another reason for me to be against self-checkouts: the financial dynamics are different with self-checkouts than with manned checkouts since the costs of inefficiency on the former are on the customer, whilst with the latter the costs are on the store (which has to pay a salary for somebody who is less productive than they could be), so stores have less (and more indirect, hence harder to measure, hence often ignored by MBAs) financial pressure to make self-checkouts efficient to use than they do with manned checkouts.
in a manned checkout it’s their problem because wasted is money being paid to a teller for nothing, so if it’s bad they fix it, whilst in self-checkouts it’s not their problem so they don’t care.
It still cost them money as they need to install more checkouts to serve the same number of customers.
I don’t usually blame maliciousness where sheere stupidity can be at play.
Even if you’re not using a card, or discount/member program, you’re still being tracked. Your face, what you purchased, how much of each item, what you paid with, etc are all being tracked.
If you have social media or associate with anyone with social media your face is online and can be matched to your name. If you have a drivers license your face can be matched to your name.
You are 100% deluding yourself if you think you’re not being tracked b/c you used cash.
Even if you’re not using a card, or discount/member program, you’re still being tracked. Your face, what you purchased, how much of each item, what you paid with, etc are all being tracked
You will be all right mate, you just need to wear a little tinfoil hat, that stops this kind of tracking.
They have to go massively out of their way, spending a lot more more money both in hardware and ongoing processing power costs, to do that kind of tracking which gives far less reliable results, than simply matching the entry in the database of a specific purchase with the person identified by the card that paid that purchase.
Your “argument” is akin to a claim that people shouldn’t worry about having a good lock on their door because it’s always possible to break the door down with explosives.
“Don’t be the low hanging fruit” is a pretty good rule in protecting your things, including protecting your privacy.
But, hey, keep up the good work of giving them all your personal info on a platter so that their ROI of investing in the kind of complex tech needed to do tracking of people like me remains too low to be worth it.
Clearly you’re not in tech, shadow profiles are a thing and the ROI on tracking “people like you” is pretty high.
whilst in a normal checkout I can do packaging in parallel with somebody else doing the checkout
The store I go to most often has those rotating plastic bag holders at the end of the belts which makes it effectively impossible to put stuff into your own bags. And they have the fucking gall to put up signs asking you to bring your own bags! I do self-checkout there no matter how much shit I have in the cart.
My number one reason for avoiding self checkout is that I want people to have jobs.
If fewer and fewer people use the manned cashier lines, there will be fewer manned cashier lines.
If it’s busy, and I’m just grabbing a few things, sure, I’ll divert to the self checkout, but if there’s nobody in line, or just a few people in line, I’ll avoid self checkout. I’m not going to be the reason someone lost shifts.
- It’s often very time saving to go through checkout. It is really that much hassle to scan your own items? If you’re using a card you typically handle that yourself anyway and many places already have you bag your own goods.
- you’re not going to get in any real trouble if you forget one item. If they happen to check and you did, simply go pay for it, or say “oops, missed that, here take it back I’ll get it next time” if it’s not needed.
About the second point, this is copy pasted from a Dutch magazine that looked it up (auto translated)
Forgot to pay for something? That can have serious consequences.
Forgetting to pay for something doesn’t automatically constitute theft. The shopkeeper will have to prove that you intentionally left something unpaid. However, if the shopkeeper believes it was a case of theft, they can call the police. Is this your first time? Then you’ll receive a reprimand, a kind of warning. However, you will have to admit to the theft. This won’t result in a criminal record, but it will be registered in the police system.
Another possibility is that theft will be reported to the police. In that case, you may even have to appear in court. The police will then have to prove that it was intentional – and therefore theft. The shopkeeper can also handle the matter themselves. In these cases, offenders must pay €181 in damages. In some cases, a ban from the shop will also follow. Last year, tens of thousands of shoplifting cases were handled this way.
number 2 works less well if you are off white
🎶 the land of the freeeeeeeee 🎶
🙄
I got a question, how much are you being paid for this?
No. seriously. What business is it of yours if someone chooses to not use a self check out?
What? I’m not OP, but I’m pretty sure they’re just stating why they don’t use it.
Why are you assigning their logic to what they think of others?
So to your question, I say: they never said it was their business.
Enjoy your down votes. I’ll give you and upvote just to try to equal the scales slightly. Good luck.
they’re defending the use of self-check out lanes, which were introduced as a cost saving feature for the benefit of retail stores- not their consumers.
They are more than welcome to use the checkout lanes for the reasons they gave, but others- myself included- chose not to. I don’t think any one cares about whether or not a retailer has to hire more employees. at least nobody reasonable.
You do whatever. I like them when I have just a few items because it saves time and social interaction.
I’m with you. Too many opinions all up in here.
-
Fortunately, I’m the sort who goes, “Who the FUCK are you looking at?”, when I catch people staring.
Well then don’t be a fucking moron. Sorry for being a dick towards those kind of people, but the voice prompts walk you through the entire process. All you gotta do is listen to them. I didn’t have any issues when I first tried one 20 years ago. They’re self-explanatory.
I mean at this point they’ve been around long enough that everyone should know how to use them by now, unless you recently moved from a country that doesn’t have them. But again, the machines walk you through the process every time.
Mate, not the previous poster but I’m a senior software engineer with an EE degree and broad enough experience that I could design and implement myself a self-checkout from the ground up, both hardware and software, including UI and backend integration, and I still tend to avoid self-checkouts for those reasons and a lot more (many which I listed in another post here).
There are two very opposite ends of the curve for people who don’t like self-checkouts: those who can’t deal with the tech (who you deem “fucking morons”) and those who have evaluated self-checkouts as a process and found it to overall be inferior to the existing process for their own usual use conditions or who look at it in a broader context and find it to have indirect social damage.
That you can only spot the “being a moron” as a reason to avoid self-checkouts is a pretty good indicator of your own intellectual limitations.
I don’t need them to be speedy Gonzalez but to just not be actually illiterate buffoons
Screen: scan items to begin
Them: staring at the machine, slack jawed until the employee comes over
For me it’s mostly privacy concerns. Now the fucking shop and all their 111 marketing partners know my email and where I live.
Why? At least here the self checkout gets exactly the same info from me as the regular one
You mean you can pay with cash? The one I’ve seen is with making an account with email and online payment, or worse, an app that can extract all sorts of info.
where are you at that you can’t use cash and have to use an app??? everywhere I’ve worked and shopped, at least some of the self checkouts take cash
Havent seen one where you can pay with cash, but I have never seen one where you need to make an account to use.
I just tap my card
Well then they know your name at the very least and can use and sell your shopping data.
But that’s not at all specific to self checkouts
Yeah, but all you need to do is wear a small tinfoil hat, that protects you from this.
HOW THE FUCK IS BEING CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR EVERY MOVEMENT BEING TRACKED CONTROVERSIAL NOW??!?
fucking shop and all their 111 marketing partners know my email and where I live.
What?
What the fuck? Do people not understand the concept of privacy? Have you ever read one of those cookie agreements? This is exactly the same!
If you pay via card or app or account they have your name and identity. We KNOW they use or sell that information from countless examples. That information is bought and aggregated by other companies, and the NSA owns or backdoors those companies, or the cops or ICE can buy that information without a warrant.
If you pay via card or app or account they have your name and identity.
App/account - yes. Card - no.
That information is bought and aggregated by other companies, and the NSA owns or backdoors those companies, or the cops or ICE can buy that information without a warrant.
I realise USA is quickly descending into totalitarianism but what you are presenting is a tinfoil hat level of madness.
In what reality do you live in lol? This isn’t a conspiracy theory, this is literally the business model of “data collection companies”. European privacy laws and the cookie disclaimer BS just showed us what is already happening.
If you don’t think all this data isn’t being collated and used then you don’t understand the nature of neoliberal capitalism and politics. Mock me all you want, but it seems they’ve already won when basic privacy is now a fringe idea.
I’m also really lazy and don’t want to do it.
that’s why one line for multiple checkouts is better
Is it not the standard? Every store with self-checkout I’ve been to has a single line for all machines. I’ve even seen some stores with a single line for regular checkout.
Some places it’s unclear, like Lowe’s home improvement stores. Most people there sort of gravitate to a one-line-for-all-kiosks arrangement but there’s often one douchebag who think everybody else is standing there for no reason and cuts in.
Not standard here, but it’s a mix. Same applies to other checkouts: so many people are doing the devil may know what, I’m terrible at picking the fastest queue.
Self check at Sam’s Club at other club stores works in a one line per checkout way, where I am at least
Yes but it’s 100x faster to use the “Scan-n-go” on your phone anyways.
Scan shit with your phone camera as you put it in the cart. When done click checkout, pay on phone. Then just walk out. Occasionally someone will ask to check yer cart.
seems weird to use an app for a physical store
Yes it does but avoiding the madhouse seems worth it. Lines at my Sam’s are always 20+ minutes long
Costco started doing that except it’s them doing it while you’re in line. Like Chik-fil-A. Big brain.
Lines were already speedy, considering.
well, not in Jordan’s hood
Where I live the grocery stores all have groups of 6+ self checkouts that are reliable enough that only one or two might be out at the same time but generally work, all of the ‘too many items’ issues have been sorted out, and they are in places where people just naturally form lines and take the next free one. It works great and is so much better than checkout lines ever were as one person going slow doesn’t hold up everyone else.
Went on a work trip to a larger city and holy hell I understand why people there would hate self checkout. Forced lines, machines that constantly required human assistance, etc. That would suck to interact with regularly.
I have the same experience as you and live in a big city, I guess it depends on what country and how up-to-date the hardware is, it used to be like you said but the past 5 years it’s been great and I always use it.
Yeah, self-chekout in the 'burbs is fantastic, we have like 4-8 machines and most of the time, at least half are available.
