My grocery has no scale system, so I regularly use them for carts full of groceries. My hubby and I have timed it, and we get through on a self-service with a full cart faster than a regular lane. There are times where we’ve gotten through with a full cart before some other with smaller orders have gotten through the regular lane.
Plus, I love to pack my own groceries. I only use paper bags, but it’s really no problem for me to walk an extra ten feet to grab some from the big counters. If there’s any leftover, I leave them at the self-checkout wedged next to the receipt printer for the next person.
I wish every store, everywhere, had nothing but self-scan lanes.
I think it is safe to assume that there would be less 24 hour stores without self checkout as an option. I don’t recall any 24 hours stores before bar-codes reduced checkout clerks to an unskilled position. I’ve also seen a lot of stores that tried 24 hour service and canceled it when they found it wasn’t profitable.
I like the self-checkout if I’m buying something I don’t really want to put on the belt for everyone to see–condoms or tampons, say. (I’m a teacher in a small town.) I’ve become pretty good at hiding items in the cart until checkout, then zapping them and slipping them in the bag in one smooth move.
I used to feel guilty about using the self-checkout because of the notion I was putting someone out of a job, but now that N has explained it, I won’t feel bad any more.
Yet there are annoyances. The Register Bitch who insists I “Please place item in the bagging area,” when the item is clearly IN the bagging area. The scales that don’t read something as light as a greeting card. The guy behind me when I was in a mad rush the other day who started scanning his stuff while the machine was processing my receipt. I said, “No, no, the machine isn’t ready. It’s working on my receipt.” He shrugged and said, “Meh.”. Well, Meh screwed up the machine enough that I ended up leaving without my receipt AND I was late for my appointment. I’ve never experienced a cashier that dumb.
Slightly OT, but I’ve always wondered who supplies that female voice. It doesn’t sound computer-generated. I always wonder if she sounds that way at home, say in bed: “Please place the item in the shagging area.”
BTW, 4011 is the PLU for bananas at every store I’ve been to.
I don’t know, but it’s alway’s a female voice, never a male. Actually I think it might be the same female voice everywhere too. Actually we used to have a bit of fun with the voice on our machines. They didn’t just have a volume control option; you could change the audio pitch (is that the right word ) settings so that it got higher & higher until the machine sounded like a cartoon chipmunk or deeper & deeper until it sounded like a cartoon frog.
Are you sure they don’t have a scale? At Costco and Winn-Dixie I put things directly on the belt, but I think it stills weights them. The computer complains when things accumulate at the bottom of the belt and I have to go shove the stuff off the belt.
It is much more convenient than putting the items in a bag on a scale.
I am amazed at the comments in this thread. Really, the machines are as simple as possible - and I go to multiple grocery stores here. I am actually saddened as some of the stores have their self-checkouts as express only. My favorite grocery store has two banks of self checkouts -one for express and one for regular and I do all my grocery shopping there and am quick and efficient. The only problem I have regularly is the damn eggs. I wish they would have them in every store.
Nope - no scale. I can take thing directly from the scanner to a bag in the cart, move things around from bag to bag as I pack, etc. And we can check out with two people - one to bag and one to scan - because there is no need to pause while things are weighed.
There’s no belt area either. Just the round-a-bout of bags with a plastic shelf above it. Just enough space to sort and bag about three or four paper bags’ worth of items at a time.
It’s a new (remodeled) store, and they just opened about five months ago. I hope it catches on,
Sounds like most of you have self-checkouts that talk to you. I’m happy that the Kroger I go to either has the voice turned off or it’s just broken. I haven’t ever heard those things say a word and I like it that way!
Speaking of scales (of a slightly different kind). Like I mentioned if a customer was paying with an EBT (Foodstamps) card or check they had to pay at the attendent stand; there was also an option to for customers to pay the attendent even if they were using credit/debit cards or cash. Sometimes people would do this then want to add something else onto their order. This wasn’t a problem unless it was weighed produce as the stand didn’t have a scale making it impossible to ring it up. :smack: So it’d have to be rung up at the self check and payed for in a seperate transaction. I remember one woman doing this multiple times and bitching me out over having to write seperate checks each time.
Lucky. It gets tiring hearing the machine’s lady voice four eight hours, especially when all four of them are chatting at once. Kids and child-like adults think it’s HILARIOUS to press the Spanish button as they walk out. Yeah, because that hasn’t ever been done by anyone, ever. :rolleyes: For some reason the Spanish voice has a very strange accent, is male, significantly louder than the English U-Scan lady voice, and says “Kroger Discount Card” in a very drawn-out Texan-like accent.
I wish that my Kroger had the ones with the converyer belts. To be honest, I haven’t seen those anywhere around here except for Meijer. We don’t even have the turnstyle bagging area, just the shelfs. This Kroger is one of the oldest around here, built back in 1971, and smallest so the store gets neglected by corporate like an ugly baby and when we get “new” anything in actuality it’s hand-me-downs from all the other stores.
The store can’t even expand because it doesn’t own the building. It is getting a new paint job on the inside- looks like the old setup was done in the early 90s and was getting pretty dirty. Mmmm, more paint fumes to inhale tonight!
Our Front-End Manager kept doing that after they were upgraded with a Spanish option. She’d just stand there and press random buttons to hear it speak Spanish while she giggled :rolleyes I had to stand by while his was doing this in front of a Hispanic woman who looked mortified.
I keep giving them another try, and they keep failing me.
I’ve had to wait for the store employee, because the person in front of me decided to take off with out paying, leaving the machine asking to be paid $30 for a steak and some coffee.
I’ve had no one be able to tell me what the code for bulk peanut butter cups is. Finally, someone had to go ask one of the women at a register, who apparently had every code in the store memorized. It wasn’t listed under peanut, bulk, chocolate or Brachs. It was under assorted.
I’ve had codes for a type of apple not be in the system. With a checker, I’m usually able to say “That’s a pink lady, and it was marked at $1.69/lb”. This turned into an epic saga to find the code for pink ladies.
The designs are total crap. Why are the pressure plates/scales so small that 3 items in the bag means that it’s falling off the plate? Who decided that it takes zero time to pick up the cantalope that I am buying, and move it to a bag? Every time I hear “Please place item in bag” I want to kick someone.
Don’t mind using them, but only if I am purchasing a handful of items and if their is not a complete F’ing idiot in front of me trying to figure out what a bar code is
) settings so that it got higher & higher until the machine sounded like a cartoon chipmunk or deeper & deeper until it sounded like a cartoon frog. 
