Stores Rethink Self Checkout

[Cristiano]

Good riddance - I hate self checkout. Why should I do the work? I don't get a discount for being an unpaid employee.

Walmart, Costco and other companies rethink self-checkoutl

 

[Isabeau]

There’s often no room to even bag your stuff in some stores here (pharmacies, dollar store) or you have to bend down, and problems with the machines so you have to wait, and if you use the checkout with employees, you still have to bag your stuff, with your own bag, and again no counter space while they start helping the next customer so you feel like you’re being too slow, etc. Shitty experience all around. I wish they would simply stop with the loyalty cards and instead give us a little more service. At times there isn’t even a hello. It almost feels like they’re doing you a big service selling you their merchandise.


(I’m officially an old person get off my lawn)

 

[Cristiano]

I wish they would simply stop with the loyalty cards and instead give us a little more service. At times there isn’t even a hello. It almost feels like they’re doing you a big service selling you their merchandise.

On a different note, I recently connected a grocery store loyalty card at the end of my order on Instacart, and it recalculated prices and I saved $52 on my order - so I am not mad at loyalty cards.

 

[Essence Lumin]

When I lived in Portland my main supermarket was Safeway. Here it is Shoprite. With Shoprite the loyalty card might save a few dollars here and there. With Safeway it was essential. It amounted to 20% or 30% off the bill every time. I thought that was pretty scummy of them. Basically have higher prices and require the card. But I was limited to bus travel so their weren't other good options for shopping.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

They always put the slowest cashiers in the self check out.

At my local store, there are times when there are no cashier lanes open, and you get stuck behind slow people with big carts to check out and you need to find an employee anyway to ring up your beer.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

In most parts of the UK, and certainly where I live, most of the big supermarkets let you shop and pay online. You can then pick up your order from the store at no extra cost or have it delivered for a small extra charge.

I've not shopped in person in a supermarket for some years now. It's all online or at a local, family-run convenience store just down the road from my apartment.

 

[Soen Eber]

I've only used the self-checkout a couple of times at Target to purchase from their food & snack area, otherwise I always go to a live person. Often its an older person who's been a cashier for years, and I'm not about to kick them out of their job. Grocery stores run on very thin margins so I can understand why they do this, but I won't put up with it.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Trader Joe's doesn't have self-checkout, which is fine by me. (I live next door to one, and go almost daily for a handful of perishable things). The big chain grocery store next to it (Ralph's) rarely has enough cashiers on the floor at a time to handle their traffic, and the line for self-checkout gets ridiculous during peak hours.

But off-peak I like self-checkout. I rarely buy more than an item or two at a time and there's -usually- no wait for a scanner. I sorta treat the whole store like a big vending machine.

 

[Noodles]

I prefer self checking, but I also get frustrated when people who can't handle it are in front of me moving slow.

I just find its faster.

I have realized after checking that something did not ring up occasionally. Whoops.

Walmarts around here have recently put in new machines though, and the new machines are complete trash. Parts falling off and they are not even a week old, the touch screen is completely unresponsive unless you basically pound it with your fingers repeatedly, and the scanner is constantly double scanning because its too sensetive. Like just recently I was buying some markdown food and the markdown label didn't completely cover the real barcode and it dinged teice rapidly, adding both to the order. Also, it asks EVERY TIME if you want a printed or texted reciept. Just print that off, I assume you can attach my email to my debit card number, you can attached that I want a printed reciept every time.

Total side note, from the article, is Five Below really considered a "Discount toy retailer"? They have other stuff.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

You guys and your self checkout. I started ordering my groceries delivered during the pandemic and I'm not about to quit now. No more wandering concrete floors, dodging sick kids and wasting an hour or more of my time. I shop online and stay home. Easy peasy. Plus, I try to tip the deliverer well enough to make it worth their while.

 

[Lexxi]

Trader Joe's doesn't have self-checkout, which is fine by me. (I live next door to one, and go almost daily for a handful of perishable things). The big chain grocery store next to it (Ralph's) rarely has enough cashiers on the floor at a time to handle their traffic, and the line for self-checkout gets ridiculous during peak hours.

But off-peak I like self-checkout. I rarely buy more than an item or two at a time and there's -usually- no wait for a scanner. I sorta treat the whole store like a big vending machine.

When I go to my local Target, they almost never have more than 1 or 2 cashier lanes open. Yet self checkout almost never has that many people in line. Occasionally, rarely, it does.

I mention this more so I can mention: the other day I went to that Target and almost turned around and left because the self-checkout lane was insane. But I continued, hoping it'd thin out by the time I was done. Didn't. Think that did happen? Walked right past a cashier lane that had no one in it, so I got through quickly.

Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking when they checkout.

Actually, this reminds me that I went to Wall-mart the other day also (the second time I've been there in 30 years), just because it has, or at least is the only place that sells two different sodas no other place else sells. I was looking for something 'extra' that was on the other end of the store, so I came back that way. And found something like 5 lanes with cashiers in them. Staffing them. No one using them, though. So . . . I got out of there quickly also. I can't see how busy/unbusy the cashier lanes are if I come from the grocery section - so I didn't even realize, until that day, that they even had cashier lanes. Self-checkout was, of course, a mess.

 

[Lexxi]

You guys and your self checkout. I started ordering my groceries delivered during the pandemic and I'm not about to quit now. No more wandering concrete floors, dodging sick kids and wasting an hour or more of my time. I shop online and stay home. Easy peasy. Plus, I try to tip the deliverer well enough to make it worth their while.

Sadly, I live in an apartment complex and it's basically impossible to have stuff delivered to me. To the point I almost never have food delivered, and if I do have groceries delivered, I have it sent to my parents house even though they live a couple towns away from me. Because . . . house.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I’m standing on all y’all’s lawns.

 

[Casey Pelous]

So, if customers are the cashiers, a lot of them take the opportunity to give themselves the ol' five finger discount.

How many high-priced executives did it take to not see that coming before they sank gazillions (est.) into this idiotic boondoggle?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

In most parts of the UK, and certainly where I live, most of the big supermarkets let you shop and pay online. You can then pick up your order from the store at no extra cost or have it delivered for a small extra charge.

I've not shopped in person in a supermarket for some years now. It's all online or at a local, family-run convenience store just down the road from my apartment.

I dunno. It's convenient, to be sure, especially when the store is way too people-y. But there's something about being able to pick up, inspect, and carefully choose each item I put in the cart, especially things like produce, eggs, and stuff with short shelf lives like milk.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Also, it asks EVERY TIME if you want a printed or texted reciept. Just print that off, I assume you can attach my email to my debit card number, you can attached that I want a printed reciept every time.

Most of the time, when given the choice, I have receipts emailed to me. But not at Walmart. I'm not about to approach that employee standing at the exit checking everyone's receipts without one.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Well I'll say this, if they ditch self-checkout lanes it's going to be back that whole thing where you're waiting in line to ring up two items behind 8 full grocery carts in one of the two or three lanes that's actually open even though the store has like 18 lanes, because they might be ditching the machines but you can be your life they won't be hiring any more cashiers to replace them.

 

[Noodles]

You guys and your self checkout. I started ordering my groceries delivered during the pandemic and I'm not about to quit now. No more wandering concrete floors, dodging sick kids and wasting an hour or more of my time. I shop online and stay home. Easy peasy. Plus, I try to tip the deliverer well enough to make it worth their while.

We were doing that during the Pandemic, but rhen Walmart screwed up their app and started mixing in delivered online options from 3rd party scalpers. It wanted to charge like $40 for a case of water bottles because it though they were out of stock locally.

Fuck that noise.

Especially since 9/10 times they were in stock in the store. It did this with more than just water, that's the easiest example. If its out of stock, just don't offer it.

Also, substitutions even with no substitutions.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I started ordering my groceries delivered during the pandemic and I'm not about to quit now.

Preaching to the choir, but Mrs. Beebo remains obdurately, obstinately in favor of in-person grocery shopping. So now she just goes off to the store in the early morning while I'm still sleeping.

We spent the pandemic ordering online and then picking up the orders ourselves. The errors in fulfilling the orders drove my wife crazy -- claiming items aren't in stock when she could walk into the store and find them, mistaking similar items for each other, and really poor item selection in the fresh food section. She'd rather do it herself, even if she's using the disabled cart to get around the store.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I prefer self-checkout. Shorter lines and you can't catch COVID or other airborne diseases from them.