Stores Rethink Self Checkout

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well I like self checkouts, if I don't have too much stuff or special cases. Many shops here also restrict self checkout to a certain maximum number of items, usually 10.

Law is here in Germany when buying alcoholic stuff the cashier needs to ensure you are 18+ years old. This means you can still scan alcoholic stuff at a self checkout, but then a buzzer rings and a human cashier has to confirm to self checkout system that you are indeed 18+ years old. Before this confirmation happened you cannot finalise your cart and pay for it. This adds quite some additional time to the whole process. So when buying alcohol a human cashier will be most likely faster.

What I also have not tested yet is how self checkouts do work in case I but e.g. just one apple. But anyway... also many cashiers here are much quicker than in America. Its a big difference in cash culture.

 

[Isabeau]

The grocery store I usually go to keeps sending me emails to urge me to order on line. This morning it’s 20$ off my next 4 orders. 80$ savings, pretty good, right? But I am only a 2 minute walk away. That’s not very environmentally friendly. No matter how much we try to reduce our footprint, there’s always something else. I give up. The system is already built, might as well go along while we still can.

In any case, I don’t have a big family to shop for, I like going to different stores like the bakery, fruit/veg store, etc. I’m not cooking meals for the month.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

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.

We use a regional store that still screws things up sometimes, but they turn out to be really easy to deal with. As long as we get the essentials, the desserts and foo-foo aren't that critical.

I think the biggest issue is that neither my husband nor me has that much strength and energy to be physically browsing shelves. I know I don't, and he's not a healthy man.

I can't think of one thing I miss about the grocery store.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

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?

"Shrinkage" may go up, but they save so much in labor costs that they're probably fine with the trade off.

 

[Noodles]

At least for Walmart, what I have read is they don't save anything in people cost, technically, because those cashiers are now running pick up order carts.

Granted, they couldnhave BOTH working and employ more people.

 

[Khamon]

It is nice to have choices. Sometimes I order online and pickup, sometimes go into the store and use a manned register, sometimes go into the store and scan everything with the phone as I shop then pop a bar code at the self-check to get a receipt, and sometimes (especially for one or two items) use the self-checkout machine to avoid the register line.

Some of the shops have leaned too far into providing many self-check stations and only one or two registers. That's not the same thing as offering multiple checkout options to patrons. It's poor management. And, yes, the person manning self-check usually has to call a supervisor to answer the simplest of questions. That's also a management mistake.

 

[Essence Lumin]

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.

Could be, but where I lived there were two supermarkets to choose from. One didn't have enough cashiers ever and long lines at self checkout too so fuck that place.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Does this mean I have to talk to people again? (T_T)

 

[Innula Zenovka]

What sort of competition is there between supermarkets in the US? Where I live, I have a choice of six large chains from which I can order online, and they all have large stores within a few miles of me if I wanted to shop in person.

 

[Khamon]

It depends on where we live. Large cities have options of large chains and local shops. Smaller towns say in Podunk Alabama have one major chain and a few local shops. We do though pay a lot less for local fresh produce, fish, meat, bread, honey and such things.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

What sort of competition is there between supermarkets in the US? Where I live, I have a choice of six large chains from which I can order online, and they all have large stores within a few miles of me if I wanted to shop in person.

In a large city like Columbus, we have four chains (Giant Eagle, Kroger's, Meijer's, Wal Mart). Then there are a couple discount chains like Aldi's and higher end chains (Trader Joe's and Whole Foods). Plus a few independents that have managed to hold out and then a few ethic grocery stores, mostly Chinese and Indian.

When we lived in Jonesboro, a city of 50,000, we had Kroger's and Wal Mart. We had to go to Memphis or Little Rock for specialty stores.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

It depends on where we live. Large cities have options of large chains and local shops. Smaller towns say in Podunk Alabama have one major chain and a few local shops. We do though pay a lot less for local fresh produce, fish, meat, bread, honey and such things.

Small towns have Walmart or the Walmart in the next town over.

But even in large cities there are significant "food deserts" where there are no food stores of any kind nearby. Mostly this happens in poor areas but it happens to middle-class and well-to-do neighborhoods where there are strict zoning regulations.

 

[Noodles]

What sort of competition is there between supermarkets in the US? Where I live, I have a choice of six large chains from which I can order online, and they all have large stores within a few miles of me if I wanted to shop in person.

I live in a smaller city, like 70k people I think.

There are a Kroger, Walmart and Aldi that share a paerking lot, and its not a supermarket, but a Dollar General scross the street from those.

Within the city, like a 10-15 minute drive max, there is another Walmart, a Target, a County Market and like 3 other Krogers. Plus a couple of Aldi stores and maybe a Save-a-Lot.

There are probably several other smaller independent grocery stores I don't visit either.

So, quite a few.

To contrast this, the small 5k people town I used to live in, we had a County Market and an IGA which turned into a Save-A-Lot (I could, and did walk to this one, it was a block away). There was a Walmart, the smallest I had ever been in, so hardly a supermarket, but it closed.

You could drive 20 minutes or so throigh the cornfields to one of two nearby small towns to another Walmart and County Market and Kroger in each of those towns though.

 

[Essence Lumin]

What sort of competition is there between supermarkets in the US? Where I live, I have a choice of six large chains from which I can order online, and they all have large stores within a few miles of me if I wanted to shop in person.

It very much depends on where you live. I don't order online so no idea about that. Here in a NJ suburb of Philadelphia, there is Acme which is kind of small and tends to be expensive. There is Shoprite which is quite large and normal prices (my place to go for food shopping). There is Wegmans which is even larger but is more upscale with tons of organic stuff. There is Aldis which specializes in sale stuff and is not a full service market. Then there is Walmart, Costco and places like that.

 

[Spirits Rising]

I don't mind the self-checkouts honestly, as long as they have quite a few regular lanes and have them open it isn't much of an issue. Slightly less than a mile from where I am now is an Acme, two pharmacies (CVS and Walgreens) and a Whole Foods 365 (yep, those do still exist though no new ones are being opened). Walking a bit longer and you have a local bakery.

With a vehicle or taking a bus, you can hit one of several Aldi, Sam's Club, Walmart or even Giant Eagle locations with a few dollar stores here and there.

 

[Pancake]

I’m really shocked by some of the responses here.

I love self checkout. In fact I’ve changed my shopping habits to favour places with self checkout.

I don’t have to small talk a cashier.

I don’t have to deal with people touching my shit, squeezing my bread, etc.

I can bag things in my preferred order. I have a system, and put things on the conveyor in a specific intentional order but cashiers will ignore my system and randomly grab unlike items from anywhere on the belt and toss it in a bag. Mayhem!

I can confirm prices myself.

I don’t have to deal with person behind me, and their snot rats, up in my personal space.

Soooo many reasons. If I have to go back to using cashiers I don’t know what I’ll do.

 

[Pancake]

Why should I do the work? I don't get a discount for being an unpaid employee.

Aunt Lisa is that you?

 

[Noodles]

I can bag things in my preferred order. I have a system, and put things on the conveyor in a specific intentional order but cashiers will ignore my system and randomly grab unlike items from anywhere on the belt and toss it in a bag. Mayhem!

OH YES.

Like hey, I put all the heavy cold stuff together, so it stays cold together and can go on the bottom.

I put the chips and breads near the back, so it ends up on top and bagged together, instead of with some can goods or whatever.

There is an ordee here people!

Also, with self checkout, I don't have to lift up the heavy stuff like cat food or water so the person can reachnover the counter to scan things. I can just pile it in the cart eith barcodes visible and beep beep beep beep right through it all.

BONUS SIDE RANT!

The store brand soda puts barcodes on all four sides of the boxes. The brand name soda puts it on the bottom only, and Inam pretty sure it USED to be on the top also. Its such a pain to have to put a 12 pack of cans in the cart with the handle down.

Why can't you put the barcodes on the top also Pepsi/Coke????

 

[Essence Lumin]

Also, with self checkout, I don't have to lift up the heavy stuff like cat food or water so the person can reachnover the counter to scan things. I can just pile it in the cart eith barcodes visible and beep beep beep beep right through it all.

For cat litter or stuff like that, the cashiers at my supermarket come around the counter and scan it with a wireless gun.

 

[Free]

I don’t have to small talk a cashier.

I don’t have to deal with people touching my shit, squeezing my bread, etc.

I don’t have to deal with person behind me, and their snot rats, up in my personal space.

So, you're a people person?