If I ran the grocery store!

[fedman]

@california_jobcase

I’d add a “cash only and we mean it” register. I know this board leans hard to the card-swiper side, but it just seem like every time I get behind a card user, it goes like this:

1. Wait for every item from a $150 order is rung up and bagged.
2. Cashier says the total price.
3. Customer goes digging in purse or wallet for card.
4. Customer swipes card. Card doesn’t work.
5. Customer inserts card into chip reader. Card declined.
6. Customer searches for another card.
7. Rerun steps 3-7 twice more…

and also check writers who wait till bill total to reach for checkbook even though they could fill out most of check before going to cashier

[fedman]

@Grrr

I would like grocery stores to come up with phone apps that help you with your grocery list.

When you make an entry to the list, the app tells you what isle it’s on.

How can they do that since every store is different (including same chain as others have observed)

[fedman]

@Jackmannii

If I ran my local supermarket I would:

1. Stop advertising specials as 3 (or 5) of an item for a special low price each, when buyers can get just 1 of the item for that same price, and

2. I’d stop sneaking an organic produce item into the general produce display in order to trick customers into buying the higher-priced organic stuff.

3. I’d be fired as manager for losing out on store income.

but some stores require you to buy that quantity in order to get that price per item

[Ukulele_Ike]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

Yup. I don’t know what’s up with the multiple responses saying they should be removed. There should be more of them! I don’t understand just what people think is so hard and confusing about them. They are super easy and it’s so much quicker to use one of those than have to wait in a long line at a cashier.

Seriously? In Brooklyn, the grocery stores consider every customer a potential felon, and the self checkouts are always going “BING! Return unscanned item!” And you need to call a human being over to prove you’re not conniving to rob them of a 69 cent quart of seltzer.

[Enola_Gay]

@california_jobcase

I’ve never had your experience with those.

I do like the smaller carts for adults that are cropping up these days. They do have a safety problem, though. The basket and handle don’t have as much overhang as on the regular carts, so the wheels end up closer to one’s feet. I wear sandals in the summer and have lost at least two pinky toenails to the wheels on those things while making maneuvers that are perfectly safe with a full-size cart (buggy here in S. GA). I guess I’d redesign them by tucking them farther under the basket or by adding floor-hugging fenders to the wheels.

If you wear sandals, then you are lucky that you’ve never experienced a store that had child shopping carts or you’d be likely missing a few toes. My local grocery stores still have them, so I have to deal, but thankfully not at Target.

[Johanna]

@silenus

Brava!

Aw shucks, fellas. :o ::rotating toe on the ground::

[Grrr]

@fedman

How can they do that since every store is different (including same chain as others have observed)

You would have enter the specific store your at on the app.

Someone up thread mentioned Walmart already does this. So I think it’s doable.

[nightshadea]

lowes sort of does it too ,it tells you what asile its on and where its located on the shelf

[Broomstick]

@fedman

and also check writers who wait till bill total to reach for checkbook even though they could fill out most of check before going to cashier

Got one better - our registers write your check out for you, no need for you to write anything on it. We tell people that. We still get people who insist on laboriously writing out the check by hand before handing it over for the machine to print over their writing. And these folks invariably wait until the transaction is complete to even begin filling out the check.

[Broomstick]

@fedman

How can they do that since every store is different (including same chain as others have observed)

Our chain of stores has a computer for each store that tracks where each item is supposed to be in the store. If the app could access that database then the customer could be told where items are.

Just a few problems:

1. There would need to be something to explain the coding system. It’s not rocket science and it could probably be done.
2. There are security issues with making the store database accessible to the general public.
3. The people who do the stocking are human, fallible, and sometimes things wind up in the wrong place - which the computer/database/app wouldn’t know. Also, yes, we get stupid, lazy, careless, and sometimes even illiterate stockers (one of my managers once said that she could work with the illiterate - but she needs to know they’re illiterate and adjust her instructions for that. Illiterate people who won’t admit they have a problem are the biggest issue).

In actual fact, there is a device that lets the employees access this database - but not all employees have those devices (there been noise about an in-company app that would allow employees to use a personal smart phone for this, but again there are security issues). There are also kiosks around the store where you can scan a barcode to get the price and other information from it. IF you know the secret you can also get the location… but the general public is not told how to get to the location information. Why, I don’t know. But employees who don’t have the handheld devices that have database information use the kiosks to get location data.

[Nava]

@Nava

The motherfucking clothespins would be with Cleaning Supplies, not Bazar (crappy plastic items).

Please allow me to correct myself. I’ve recently seen some supermarkets which stocked certain items in more than one place. For example, the premade broth could be: in the pasta alley, in the prepared food alley, or in the condiments alley. One of the locations will have more of it, but reserving half a meter of space to keep people from going nuts trying to find it apparently does pay.

So, the clothespins would mainly be in cleaning supplies right next to the clothes soaps but we’d keep some with the one-use plates and cutlery, for those people who need clothespins but apparently not for washing clothes.

[kayaker]

If I held the grocery store scepter I’d shut down operations and chase everyone out while I did my shopping. People would quickly adapt to this, I hope.

[Patch]

@Biotop

Many refrigerated products are together because they are in the refrigerator. You cannot stock cereal next to milk. You cannot stock deli meats next to bread. No matter where you stock the poor Velveeta someone will think it should be somewhere else.

Didn’t stop my local store from moving butter to the baking isle in its own little refrigerated cabinet. Put it in the fucking dairy aisle where it belongs! :mad:

[Annie-Xmas]

I think most people expect all stores to be open 24/7. I call it “the 7-eleven mentality.” People do not understand the closing time means every customer has to be out. It does not mean you can come in “for one item,” the people in the store can continue to shop, that we can stay open until you can get here, or that we can put your purchase on the next day’s receipt (someone got fired for doing this).

I bet most people would support a bill to force every store to be open all the time. Ain’t gonna happen.

[EarlGrayHot]

I’ve always had problems with self-checkouts. So I hate them and always go to a checkout that is staffed with a real live person.

[Patch]

Oh, and hand baskets. There would be tons of hand baskets. I don’t want to walk around pushing a shopping cart when I’m buying 3 items. Safeway seems to be getting rid of theirs, so I’m switching to another store.

[as_u_wish]

I would like an express lane “surcharge” for items over 10 or 12. Perhaps you get a one item grace. Essentially, there is a $1.00 surcharge per item for any items over the designated limit. And no, you cannot exchange an un-scanned item for one already scanned. No, you cannot put an item back on the shelf or ask us to do so. Once the item is on the conveyor belt, it will be rung up and you will pay the surcharge. Perhaps when you get in the line you have to “read the rules” on a little mini-screen and check that you agree to them.

And can I admit that there are times when I have an item over the limit that I might be willing to pay the $1.00 for to go in the shorter line…

[bump]

@GargoyleWB

First practice I’d change is that the Hispanic food section in most markets has only a small sliver of selections, but corn chips, tortillas, salsa, queso are all scattered to the winds in other different aisles.

See, that’s a pain in the ass to those of us for whom those things are staples. I don’t want to have to go from the chip aisle to the Hispanic section if I want tortilla chips, queso or salsa? Why in the world would I want to do that? Same thing with tortillas- they should be with the bread.

I mean, the Hispanic food section is for the more esoteric Hispanic foods- zanahorias en escabeche for example. Or for Hispanic-specific brands of stuff that is carried elsewhere- ISTR that my local store carries stuff like “Vitacilina” first aid cream, which is functionally the same as Neosporin, but in the Hispanic section because that’s what those consumers are looking for.

[kayaker]

@Patch

Oh, and hand baskets. There would be tons of hand baskets. I don’t want to walk around pushing a shopping cart when I’m buying 3 items. Safeway seems to be getting rid of theirs, so I’m switching to another store.

Agree. I always use a basket at Giant Eagle. If all that I want won’t fit in a basket, I will come back some other time and get the rest, but I never use a cart. It started as a “I prefer to use a basket” and has evolved into “the basket challenge”.

[Doctor_Jackson]

@Annie-Xmas

Seriously, DO NOT ask cashiers to help you find something. That is the aisle worker’s domain.

Sorry, we may have to agree to disagree. From the customer viewpoint the cashier is the first, last and often only store employee the customer sees. It is eminently logical to ask them a question. If the cashier doesn’t know the answer, they should ask/page someone who does. If the inquiring customer is checking out at the time and there is a line behind them it is perfectly OK to ask them to allow the other customers through while their inquiry is addressed.

To often businesses look at processes from the view of what makes things more efficient for them. Sometimes that is in direct conflict with what makes things easier for the customer/client. Since the customer/clients pay the bills (including your salary), it would behoove the business to make things as easy for the customer as humanly possible.