My guess is 2 or 3 but I’ll pay attention next time,
This is probably what self-checkout in the 2030s will look like. With UPC codes (or similar) printed on three sides of rectangular-prism packaging (aka ‘boxes’) or on top and bottom of flat items, etc., and movable scanning arms below a large ‘tabletop’ glass plate, the tech is already developed.
The elongated UPC codes that you’ll sometimes see on, for example, large packs of bottled water (see below) – such codes anticipate the wide adoption of the ‘tabletop’ check-out system. Such codes can be printed on, say, 2-liter soda bottles, potato-chip bags, large vegetable cans, etc. so that the codes can be read however the items are placed on the ‘tabletop’.
I wasn’t proposing what you may think I was proposing. At my store, most produce (at least the ones larger than a grape) have BC stickers on them, even tomatoes. Or if they are pre-bagged or bundled, on the outside of the bag or tied to a bundle.
I have some vague memories that I’ve been seeing these long UPC codes on other items besides bulk bottled water. Here are a few other examples I’ve found quickly via Google Image search:
The one I’m thinking of is something like this. I can’t remember whether I saw it at a Hudson News or some other similar convenience store at O’Hare:
It does not appear the UPC codes are used in this system.
At my local grocery, next to the produce section are scales that you can put your item on, and then touch the picture that looks like it under its name, and it’ll print out a bar code.
The only reason I don’t use self scan is if I have too many items. The self scan is 20 items or less, so if I have more than that, then I have to wait an interminable amount of time for a lane to open up. It’s actually gotten me to make more visits to the store so that I don’t have to get as much at a time.
Those elongated UPC codes help somewhat, but wouldn’t it also help to repeat the UPC code on multiple sides of the box?
It looks like the first three pictures @bordelond posted are all products from Aldi. (The fourth appears to be from somewhere in Europe, possibly Germany.) I’ve heard that Aldi deliberately uses those large UPC codes to expedite the checkout process. In all my (admittedly limited) experience with Aldi, they never have self-checkouts, and their cashiers work very fast. I can imagine that they’re memorized where on the box many of their products’ UPC codes are located.
It’s obvious they were programmed by someone who does online grocery orders because with a couple of rules changes they could be so much better that I wouldn’t mind using them.
- I’ve learned that the first item I scan (at one large chain - Ahold) goes in my bag & then they both get set down together. There’s no option for ‘Place my bag down’; it only recognizes an “unexpected item in bagging area” of the very first, lightweight thing placed there hasn’t been scanned.
- When I’ve scanned 5 or 10 or 15 items & all of a sudden the bag area weight goes to zero just assume I filled up my bag & am moving it back into the cart instead of telling me, “item removed from bagging area” The first time you have item removed from bagging area you get a ‘timeout’ penalty; it’ll eventually reset itself & allow you to continue bagging; however, after the second time, a clerk must come over & clear it.
- Why does the store care that an item was removed from bagging area? It was already scanned & would be paid for; maybe someone has a little kid with them who decides they need one of the {candy bars} right now.
- This is the same store that, even if you swipe your club card/enter your phone # doesn’t calculate the sales price until you click ‘Finish & Pay’ I’ve now learned this but there were times I called the clerk over - “This item is on sale but it’s registering full price” Just display the sale price when it’s scanned
- Of course, that may be better than the other large chain that reads all sorts of information out to you (item, price, savings) which delays me from scanning more items until it catches up; don’t read any of that info out, just display it in one or two lines on the screen & let me scan faster TKVM
- Wegman’s has about 20 self-checkouts & not a single one will take cash. My last trip there, my purchase was $1.50. I just refuse to put $1.50 on a credit card. I don’t even think I had my wallet/CC on me. If they clerks take cash, why can’t the automated machines?
When doing a full shopping I prefer the checkout cashier lines. I lay my stuff out on the convener belt how I want it to be packed (cold stuff, & location - kitchen vs. basement/storage) They scan, I bag the way I want & the last item is bagged about 5-10 seconds after they scan it. Fast & efficient1
The only self checkouts I’ve used lately have been Wal-mart’s, and they don’t care what you do with your items after you scan them—none of that “bagging area” business that seemed to be a source of much of the frustration involved in using self-checkouts when they first started appearing.
My guess is that multiple codes on one item might make the scanning device think you had multiple items.
I am puzzled why the elongated (in either direction) codes would make much difference. Maybe it’s just for artistic merit. The software should treat those the same as smaller labels; the height or width is immaterial to the code reading as long as the complete label can be read in a single scan.
I speak as one who once wrote and implemented barcode reading (and printing) software in the 1980’s. I never had the luxury of a laser reader input, where multiple paths could be taken and the scanning speed rigidly controlled – I had to accept a hand-moved wand. So I had to handle different speeds, angles (and different barcodes, as UPC was not so universal then). I had to handle people slowing down or speeding up mid-code, reading forward or backward, plus someone who reversed the scan direction in mid-label (obviously caused an error). As long as the code could be scanned, it could be interpreted, and we tried many, many sizes and shapes, including a 6-ft long label just for kicks. Not a problem.
It’s simply that the bigger the bar code, the better the chance the scanner will see it when you wave the box in front of it—less worry about exactly how you hold or poisition it.
It also makes it stand out more for you, making it easier to tell which side of the package to wave at the scanner.
That is amazing. I was just assuming that it was code-based and that the reader was not actually looking at the item to identify it.
In a manual-scan environment, the long/huge codes give the cashier/customer some more leeway in how to move the product over the scanner – or where the scan gun can be aimed.
When we were discussing an automatic-scan ‘tabletop’ system above, I imagined that the long/large codes would help the scanner in the sense that it would matter a lot less how the items were placed on the ‘tabletop’. That discussion was before pulykamell posted the link about Mashgin’s codeless visual-scan system, which may eventually make UPC code concerns moot points.
Hudson’s is one of the larger US national concessionaires at airports. If you buy an overpriced clamshell sandwich & bottled soda in a big airport, there’s an increasing likelihood Hudson’s sold it to you. Regardless of what cutesy local culturally appropriate name is on their marquee.
Anyhow, those pay stations are increasingly prevalent everywhere, especially at large hub airports. And yes, they pay no attention to UPC barcodes: they just recognize the item by sight = video camera.
I love them. But …
Airline folk are treated as local employees pretty much everywhere we go and get a decent discount when we buy from concessionaires. But to get the discount I need the live clerk to do an override. Which can take far longer than picking & scanning my stuff, since the lone clerk is working 15 pay stations, 14 of which are being used by people who’ve never seen one before in their life & need a LOT of slooow handholding. I can’t complain too much; I was that slooow doofus few times at first.
As to interesting-shaped barcodes, my current favorites come from the Cabot Creamery folks. They make cheese, yogurt, etc.
Mooo!
I’ve not had an opportunity to use one of those visual systems yet. So I’ll ask you and @pulykamell: Why the handholding? That implies it’s not as simple as “lay items spaced apart on table, step back, wait a sec, pay”.
What are the machine-confounding errors people make with the Mashgin systems? “Items too close together” is an obvious one. What else crops up?
It was easy enough for me, but it took me about ten or fifteen seconds to understand what was going on, as I haven’t used one before. The instructions were clear, but I was still like, you mean all I do is put the items here and it figures everything out? Can that be right? It was. So the only issue was encountering one for the first time and not believing it can do what it does. I didn’t have any errors or anything with my purchase.
ETA: @pulykamell’s post just above wasn’t there when I started. But he nailed a lot of it too. And much more succinctly than I 
Picking up with where I started …
Mostly “I do not read instructions on screens. I simply do what I’ve been conditioned to do by past experience. Waving my item barcode forward produces no result I recognize. I am now utterly stuck & require human assistance.” Plus of course “I’m exhausted and frustrated and my flight is late and if that 4yo tugs my pants leg one more time I shall kill and eat my own offspring.”
The other wild and admittedly confusing variation on these paystations is for places with prefab packaged food and a live cook line assembling deli sandwiches or hot breakfast or pizza or whatever.
The device is placed out in the body of the store to be convenient for the folks skipping the live cooks. But the device are two modes: “pay for packaged goods” and “display live menu and order from it”. The idea being you order your custom-made Philly cheese steak or whatever off the menu feature and also pay for your chips, Snickers, and Coke you took from the shelves all at the same time.
That really buffaloes folks. The “home screen” on the paystation when idling displays both choices, but t’s not real “intuitive” that’s what it means. As well folks are always trying to attract the cook’s attention as if they’re the folks who take the order since there’s nothing all that obvious to indicate the paystation way over there by the chips and $19.95 potboiler novels is how you order a sammich.
Living this work life as I do of watching people in strange and novel (to them) circumstances I have long been struck by how much of most people’s lives is spent in utterly familiar surroundings dealing only with things that can be managed almost unconsciously entirely by their longstanding habits.
They know without thinking where the soda is at their usual grocery store or convenience market. Finding the soda in a convenience store-like kiosk at an airport is a bridge too far; they’re simply in sensory & cognitive semi-overload from that. And it’s not just the obvious hayseeds on their first trip to the big city. I see lots of middle-class suburban looking folks who’re dead lost in an airport store where their accents tell me they’re far from home.
Folks who mostly live on autopilot forget how to engage their brain. Or worse yet, refuse to, thinking somehow that the store should have anticipated and accommodated to their habits.
This isn’t some new 2022 observation; I was struck by it when I started back in the 1980s. The one thing people on sensory / cognitive overload do NOT do is expand their field of view and see signs. Instead they hyperfocus on what they think is the topic / item of concern. Great technique when the problem is a nearby predator; not so good when the problem is finding baggage claim.