Zone1 Self Checkout Is A Failed Experiment

[Manonthestreet]

I avoid self check out like the plague
Prefer people over machines

 

[Foxfyre]

 

[Polishprince]

The problem here is that we really don't have a multitude of people looking to work as cashiers here in America. Generations of checkout broads lost their lives when their mums decided to go to the abortuary instead of raising their children and teaching them how to run a cash register.

 

[eagle1462010]

Ive never liked it
Not that I cant handle it, but I see it as a loss of jobs.

I like the joke that we will soon have to unload the trucks to shop at Walmart.

 

[playtime]

i have never nor will i ever use one because that means one les working human who can use the cash.

 

[leftwinger]

i have never nor will i ever use one because that means one les working human who can use the cash.

They have employees to work the Self-Checkout too. One or two can do 5-10 machines? They have people watching on camera above too. You don't need a $25/hr unhappy bimbo to drag bar codes across a laser beam? Anyone even a shopper can do it. I want to do my own. I am in control. I can keep an eye and call them over is some price is wrong. Almost never wrong at Walmart. Wrong often at Safeway with cards and tricky sales tags.

 

[rightwinger]

I find self check out works very well
It is fast and convenient

I rarely have a problem

 

[playtime]

They have employees to work the Self-Checkout too. One or two can do 5-10 machines? They have people watching on camera above too. You don't need a $25/hr unhappy bimbo to drag bar codes across a laser beam? Anyone even a shopper can do it. I want to do my own. I am in control. I can keep an eye and call them over is some price is wrong. Almost never wrong at Walmart. Wrong often at Safeway with cards and tricky sales tags.

okey dokey!

you do you.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

It is preferable if you only have a few items.
Full on grocery shopping - it kinda sucks. There is never enough room and generally looking items up that are not coded sucks especially.
But it does beat standing in line for 5 minutes or more.

 

[Pellinore]

A lot of the people who I've heard don't like it, don't like it because it feels as if the store is now requiring the customers to do the employees' job, or because it results in layoffs and job loss. I can see their points, but I use it every time if I have only a few items, and it really does get me out of their sooner.

Plus, the job loss at the checkout line has to be made up for by the people whose job it is now to shop for you, and bring all of your groceries out to the car — which I use constantly, and which is even more convenient and saves even more time.

I'm okay with the new normal here.

 

[eagle1462010]

A lot of the people who I've heard don't like it, don't like it because it feels as if the store is now requiring the customers to do the employees' job, or because it results in layoffs and job loss. I can see their points, but I use it every time if I have only a few items, and it really does get me out of their sooner.

Plus, the job loss at the checkout line has to be made up for by the people whose job it is now to shop for you, and bring all of your groceries out to the car — which I use constantly, and which is even more convenient and saves even more time.

I'm okay with the new normal here.

My daughter does that...Amazon...Grub Hub..

Whichever one is busy. It comes down to the tips to make good money for the hustle. But some show a large tip then after delivered take it back.

 

[Yarddog]

When self-checkout kiosks began to pop up in American grocery stores, the sales pitch to shoppers was impressive: Scan your stuff, plunk it in a bag, and you’re done. Long checkout lines would disappear. Waits would dwindle. Small talk with cashiers would be a thing of the past. Need help? Store associates, freed from the drudgery of scanning barcodes, would be close at hand

You know how this process actually goes by now: You still have to wait in line. The checkout kiosks bleat and flash when you fail to set a purchase down in the right spot. Scanning those items is sometimes a crapshoot—wave a barcode too vigorously in front of an uncooperative machine, and suddenly you’ve scanned it two or three times. Then you need to locate the usually lone employee charged with supervising all of the finicky kiosks, who will radiate exasperation at you while scanning her ID badge and tapping the kiosk’s touch screen from pure muscle memory. If you want to buy something that even might carry some kind of arbitrary purchase restriction—not just obvious things such as alcohol, but also products as seemingly innocuous as a generic antihistamine—well, maybe don’t do that.

All is not rosy in the world of self-checkout, and some companies seem to realize it. Walmart has removed the kiosks entirelyfrom a handful of stores, and is redesigning others to involve more employee help. Costco is stationing more staffers in its self-checkout areas. ShopRite is adding cashiers back into stores where it had trialed a self-checkout-only model, citing customer backlash. None of this is an indication that self-checkout is over, exactly. But several decades in, the kiosks as Americans have long known them are beginning to look like a failure.

Self-Checkout Is a Failed Experiment

Please, not another “unexpected item in the bagging area.”

www.theatlantic.com

I seem to remember the discussions here about how those cashiers asking for raises, would be a thing of the past. Between disgruntled customers, and rising retail theft, is it safe to say the host of the article is correct?

Well, Im glad you scan YOUR stuff two or three times. It helps make up for the shoplifters. Actually from what I see for the most part they work just fine. Theres still a line yes but it moves along faster than all the other lines. It may vary from store to store depending on the equipment.
Though, shop lifters do try to take advantage and walk away from the machine. Just yesterday as I was entering a grocery store a woman of about 50 something (race I wont mention) rolls a cart out the door and is chaased down by a female clerk who grabs the cart and says YOU cant take this, you didnt pay for it. The perp argues with her for about ten seconds, gets mad and then walks away. As turns out she had just come from the self check out line and thought she could slip by. almost made it.
At my store here they say it happens EVERY DAY, and they have had to shut down one of the main doors so they can keep an eye on whos coming and going.

 

[sartre play]

Nope. The technology keeps getting better. Fewer and fewer cashiers in the stores where I live.

Less and less human face to face contact with other humans. Ear buds cell phones. Even young people hang out together less & communicate by cell phone even while standing together.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Less and less human face to face contact with other humans. Ear buds cell phones. Even young people hang out together less & communicate by cell phone even while standing together.

I did a duo gig at a DC restaurant one evening where an entire row of young people were all face-down in their phones. As a joke, I announced through the PA that we were live-streaming the gig and they could go to our website and watch it live on their phones. None of them got the joke and one asked for the web address.

 

[toobfreak]

Nope. The technology keeps getting better. Fewer and fewer cashiers in the stores where I live.

The downside, like every other business, is the store pockets the savings. They no longer need to hire an employee and now you are uncarting, scanning and bagging your own food saving them a lot of money while you continue to pay the same high prices. Much like businesses no longer keep CRS on hand to answer the phone to help you with problems. Instead of a staff at the ready, now you call and leave a message or wait 20 minutes and they call you back at THEIR convenience, assuming you have a phone, and can wait, and are free when THEY call. Assuming they even have a phone and don't just direct you to a website to try to solve your problem yourself.

 

[westwall]

The downside, like every other business, is the store pockets the savings. They no longer need to hire an employee and now you are uncarting, scanning and bagging your own food saving them a lot of money while you continue to pay the same high prices. Much like businesses no longer keep CRS on hand to answer the phone to help you with problems. Instead of a staff at the ready, now you call and leave a message or wait 20 minutes and they call you back at THEIR convenience, assuming you have a phone, and can wait, and are free when THEY call. Assuming they even have a phone and don't just direct you to a website to try to solve your problem yourself.

Indeed. But this is the natural response to unfettered illegal immigration, and idiotic minimum wage laws.

 

[Innocynioc]

Self checkout got me a 100% discount on a new ladder at Home Depot. The check out screen stated insert or swipe item. Sop I swiped it.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Self checkout got me a 100% discount on a new ladder at Home Depot. The check out screen stated insert or swipe item. Sop I swiped it.

Just think if you tried to insert it…

 

[badger2]

It's always Halloween at Walmart. These robots don't give the customer time if they make a wrong move. The robot knows only that you did not put the item where it's supposed to go in the alloted time. If you latently find a leaf of cabbage that fell off the head and try to put the leaf in with the paid-for cabbage, it will tweak and call the authorities. Total robot control against shoplifting will be to weigh each customer when they enter the store and especially the bathroom via a special gridded piezoelectric floor. Shocking the shoplifting monkey is not far away from this technology. In a hundred years, saving court and police costs may lead to outright vaporization.

 

[badger2]

Self checkout got me a 100% discount on a new ladder at Home Depot. The check out screen stated insert or swipe item. Sop I swiped it.

You no longer have go go through HD checkout. They will allow the customer to snip the cable on a power tool and walk out unmolested. It's now THE place to get tools.