I’ve made mistakes. Usually an employee will come and fix the mistake. I sometimes shop at a farmers market that only has self checkout. I’ve made mistakes there, both paying for an item i didn’t have and not paying for an item i did have. In both cases, i realized the problem when i got home. Nothing came of it, either time.
(They video, and they once had a serious enough problem that they examined the video and caught the thief. I assume they expect a certain amount of errors, though.)
When I shop I usually have too much to handle on my own. I prefer someone to check it out and bag it for me. The remainder of the process is tedious enough.
I was a cashier in high school. I don’t mind checking myself out. I do mind that I’m too fast for the Kroger self check-out.
I don’t have a problem with self-checkout per se; I have a big problem with the implementation of self checkout.
If you have a cartful of stuff most places don’t have any layout room. With traditional checkout lanes you had a conveyor belt to get stuff out of your cart before the cashier scanned it & then another area to bag after they scanned your stuff. Most of them have no room so you need to pull something out of your cart & then immediately into a bag & then there’s nowhere to put that bag once full because there’s still half a cartful of stuff in your cart.
I’ve actually stopped going to one chain because their self checkouts suck so bad. Traditional checkouts had stuff sitting approx waist high. Every single self checkout in their chain is lower, at or below knee height & you must put every item in the bagging area. I fully understand that there are some people of short stature or people in wheelchairs for which this works better & would have no issue if some stations had this low shelf but for the majority of the population this is ridiculously low (it’s below my knees); there is no @#$%& reason that I should need to bendover twice to purchase one 4 oz item; it’s bad for my back. Then, I have to enter how many bags I used for One. Four-ounced. Item.
My supermarket has a sign saying the self checkout area is for small purchases only. I forget the limit, but they give a number of items. I usually get more than that, and rarely use the self checkout. But it’s well organized, and there is a cashier there to help. I assume they also watch the customers to make sure they are ringing up all the items, but mostly they help customers who are fumbling with some part of the process.
My CVS drugstore, on the other hand, sometimes has no one checking people out, and the self checkout machine is uncomfortably low, and also very fussy that you do everything just so. Like, the height of the machine would be okay if i were putting a box of cereal there, but i usually have a bottle of pills, and have to bend over uncomfortably. And it insists i use a bag for that one bottle of pills. And it times our quickly. And…
I don’t hate self checkout. I like that i can organize my stuff. But i hate that implementation of it.
The kroger nearest me has put in 2 self checks with conveyor belts. But they’re slower than other self checks OR traditional checkouts unless you’re shopping with a second person. Because you have to scan, then bag, and it won’t let someone else start scanning until you have all your stuff off.
That is the worst possible implementation IMO.
I didn’t vote on the self checkout poll. Nothing really fit.
I prefer to go through the full service checkout if it was the way it was a few years ago. There was either a bagger or the cashier would help bag when they were done checking in the items.
Since there was a plastic bag ban in this state a few years ago this doesn’t happen. There are much fewer baggers if any at all. Since everyone has mismatched bags the cashiers rarely get involved. You might as well do self checkout. But self checkout has the issues others have mentioned, mostly not enough room to put your full order if it’s a heavy shopping day.
Yeah, the CVS self-checkout is ergonomically designed to suck. Though it’s just right for a sixteen-box-pack of tissues.
Mostly just other flavors that can’t be sold. They mix it into the chocolate rather than tossing it. At least I guess that’s what Breyer’s used to do.
I don’t have strong opinions about self-checkout one way or the other. I want to get out the door as quickly as possible so I always choose the path of least resistance.
I often see the “discount for using self-checkout” argument on Facebook.
I’ve worked at grocery stores in the past. I think a discount, even 5%, would cause a huge crowd to be waiting for the machines almost all the time. People just hear “discount” or “coupon” and don’t think about how much they actually save.
I met “extreme couponers” who would spend hours driving around to multiple stores, trying to find __ just because they had coupons for it. They made their kids buy items in a separate transaction because the items have a limit per transaction. Sure, your eight-year-old-looking daughter really wanted her own four gallons of laundry detergent.
It would depend on the amount of the discount. I’m pretty broke, so if it amounted to something significant on a particular trip through the line I suppose I’d have to take it. But if it’s going to save me something like 37 cents, I’m still taking the checkout with the clerk.
When there’s no cashiers in the traditional lanes one has no choice; it’s either self-checkout or walk out; I’ve actually done that at the chain I was talking about above. It was wasted time filling the cart but it was better for my back to ditch the cart. If you’re going to implement something so piss-poorly as to cause your customers physcial pain, well then I don’t care if some perishables get spoiled if you don’t put everything away quickly.
I live in an expensive neighborhood, and not only is there always a traditional checkout counter open, there’s usually a separate bagger (making it move faster) and if you need help getting your groceries to the car, there’s usually an employee available. Before the pandemic, they routinely took the cart to your car, but labor got more expensive and they cut back, i think. But they still sometimes offer, and i think if i actually needed help they would always provide it.
There’s hardly ever a checkout open in the evening. If one is away for the weekend & stops on their way home it’s self-checkout or nuffin’.
Even the stores that had a bagger, I’d always send them away. I want my stuff packed based on how I want to unpack it. All the cold stuff in one bag that gets handled right away once I get home. Started doing that early in Covid. The only bag that came in right away was perishables; everything else remained in the (garaged) car, usually until I was about to go to the store again two weeks later.
The rest of the stuff is based upon where it goes (basement shelves/pantry, kitchen, or upstairs / bathroom) & a mix of smart packing (heavy & larger items in the bag first. I know what I put in my cart so I know what I’m going to have to bag up. I also try to lay it out on the belt in the way it should be packed, so first up is cold bottles (milk, OJ, etc.) then any raw meats, after that comes the deli & fresh veggies which are more delicate & should be on top of that bag. A little space then any cans/jars, then any larger boxes (cereal, etc.), then the littler stuff. With a decent cashier who takes what’s closest to them I’m only a couple of items behind them & five or 10 seconds after they scan the last item everything is bagged & in my cart & I’m only waiting to pay.
Good points.
I heard of one place that gave free bags for self checkout. That would be okay.
At one store where I worked, customers were “not really supposed to” use self-checkout for more than 20 items, but we were not allowed to say anything if they did it anyway.
At another store, if a customer came into the traditional (operated by cashier) “twelve items or less” express lane with obviously more, we were not allowed to send them away. Yet we were not allowed to take down the “Express Lane - 12 Items or Less” sign.
I have no idea how strictly this is enforced, but certainly, the store encourages shoppers with full carts to use the full-service lanes.
(They got rid of the “12 items or less” lanes when they expanded the self service section to what it is now.)
I love self check because I’m super picky about how things are bagged, and my store (Publix) does not have any item limits. They still have a couple ‘10 or less’ aisles too.
Unless there’s something wrong with the scanner or barcode, I’m just as fast as a checkout lane + bagger, sometimes faster because I know what I have and how/where things will go.
My issue with self-checkout is not that I have to do it myself, it is that I rarely make it through an order without having to summon the ScanMaster, who must appear cartside, enter a code, mutter a few incantations, and eventually grant me passage.
mmm