Zone1 Self Checkout Is A Failed Experiment

[peacefan]

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?

works fine at De voordeligste supermarkt van Nederland | Dirk where i shop for groceries..

 

[Jarlaxle]

From your lips to God's ears.

I refuse to give my money to any business that expects me to do their job without pay .

So...you only use full service gas?

I never have a problem.
Are you a cranky customer?

I got pretty cranky when I got sandwich rolls bagged under canned fruit, lettuce with Drano, and raw meat with 2 cans of highly toxic insecticide!

An ATM is convienent. Self-Checkout really isn't.

Self-checkout you have to scan and bag your own groceries, and it's not like you get any discount for doing so.

You may just not be able to figure it out.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

So...you only use full service gas?

Well, you won with this

 

[HikerGuy83]

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?

What a load of horse hockey.

I stand in line and watch dozens of people zip right through the process.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Of course. Most people are able to use it with no issues.

 

[sartre play]

Do NOT use self check out, my choice.
don't support one less job for cashiers.
Don't like doing the stores job for them.
Like dealing with other humans.

 

[Andylusion]

Do NOT use self check out, my choice.
don't support one less job for cashiers.
Don't like doing the stores job for them.
Like dealing with other humans.

Well by all means go stand in line for an hour to have some careless cashier put a watermelon on top of the bread. Meanwhile the rest of us will be checked out and gone and hour ago.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Well by all means go stand in line for an hour to have some careless cashier put a watermelon on top of the bread. Meanwhile the rest of us will be checked out and gone and hour ago.

Cashiers dont bag

 

[DudleySmith]

Well by all means go stand in line for an hour to have some careless cashier put a watermelon on top of the bread. Meanwhile the rest of us will be checked out and gone and hour ago.

lol Aldi's checkers are fast and can shrink a 10 deep line faster than most convenience stores waiting on one.

Well by all means go stand in line for an hour to have some careless cashier put a watermelon on top of the bread. Meanwhile the rest of us will be checked out and gone and hour ago.

The local Walmarts are putting cashiers back in, just months after their self-checkout plan was implemented.

 

[Jarlaxle]

lol Aldi's checkers are fast and can shrink a 10 deep line faster than most convenience stores waiting on one.

But...that means I'd have to go to Aldi's.

The local Walmarts are putting cashiers back in, just months after their self-checkout plan was implemented.

No, they're not. The contrary, in fact.

 

[Andylusion]

lol Aldi's checkers are fast and can shrink a 10 deep line faster than most convenience stores waiting on one.


The local Walmarts are putting cashiers back in, just months after their self-checkout plan was implemented.

More power to you.
I can tell you, if my store removes self checkout, I'll likely go to a different store. I hated waiting 30 minutes to buy some coke, and leave.

 

[DudleySmith]

More power to you.
I can tell you, if my store removes self checkout, I'll likely go to a different store. I hated waiting 30 minutes to buy some coke, and leave.

Rubbish.

 

[Blues Man]

The super market I frequent most often has never adopted the self checkout. In fact if you try to bag your own groceries a clerk or even a manager will step up and take over the task for you.

IMO this is how it should be.

 

[Zebra]

I look for stores where real live people check you out. Especially as I buy a LOT of produce and you have to look up the stuff on the menu, aren't sure if you found the right one. . .or the alternative is for the store to bag batches of whatever so that there is a barcode on the bag and you get it home and a lot of the fruit or whatever is bruised or old or otherwise not at all what you would have picked out for yourself.

Not to mention that almost invariably one or more machines is out of order. And like you said, if there is an error it takes forever to get it fixed. And like you said, except in a few cases maybe when you have three or four quickly scannable items, it is rarely any faster. Just more stressful.

Thanks for a good vent thread!

i also prefer real people!

 

[Zincwarrior]

I use them for five or less items. I can blast through there pretty quickly. Anything more then I use normal checkout as its still faster that way.

 

[rightwinger]

More power to you.
I can tell you, if my store removes self checkout, I'll likely go to a different store. I hated waiting 30 minutes to buy some coke, and leave.

For a small order, I would just as soon scan myself.

But on a large order, I hate finding all the barcodes and sometimes double scan or miss an item.
I would rather have someone do it for me

 

[DGS49]

It seems to me that each shopper should be able to decide for itself whether self-checkout or going to a "manned" register is the better option. If you have items with no price or ID tag, or if you have items that need to be weighed and you are not comfortable with it, consider that in your choice.

The worst choice is getting in a short self-checkout line behind an idiot, and that's not always apparent until it's too late to change.

 

[hadit]

My Dad, as a young adult in the 1950's, remembers how they would feel sorry for the poor wretches in the Soviet Union that had to pump their own gas when they filled up their cars. I dare say that everyone here does that on a regular basis.

 

[sartre play]

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?

Limited self check out is the answer,
personal contact/ community with other humans is needed.
Jobs for average working people are needed.
Not every one thinks they need to be millionaires.

 

[sartre play]

Sounds like the same flat-earth people who said ATMs will kill the bank jobs for tellers. 50 years later they have gone silent.

Someone has to design the ATM, build it, order parts, qualify it, test it, sell it, ship it, maintain it, program it, clean it, stock it etc.
We don't want the jobs installing a philips screw into a dash 8 hours a day. Create the good high-paying jobs. We don't need someone to run a bar code over a laser beam for us. You pulled it off the shelf...you are halfway done.

It is call technilogical progress.

USE to have personal contact with bank employees year after year, Now tellers come and go like the wind.