The bugginess of SCO seems to depend on the store. But it has been getting better.
I’m pretty sure California does not allow purchase of alcohol in a self-checkout line. Our stores have it pretty much set up as an express lane with a limit of 15 items, so lack of space is not an issue. Makes sense because three or four big orders would block up the self checkout machines for a long time, and I can’t believe anyone could get through a big order without the need for intervention.
I did self checkout once at our Costco for a small order, and it was great. I noticed they gave me a different colored receipt, I suppose so my basket could be more thoroughly checked at the door.
I’ve seen a big improvement in the Walmart machines around here over the last few years. The barcode readers are super fast, and I believe they simply did away with weighing the plastic bags. For produce, I always enter the four-digit number and then weigh it.
I went from a frustrated first timer to someone that uses self checkout almost exclusively. Most of the frustrating bugs I first encountered are gone, so I seldom have to engage with the attendant (the credit/debit readers get more abuse than the ones in the regular check out, so they sometimes glitch out; some third party coupons need the attendant to sign off; some new vegetables aren’t in the system right and need to be entered under another code). It’s just about always faster than regular checkout (and in pandemic times tends to minimize interaction duration and maximize spacing with other humans).
It’s simple queueing theory. The jobs (baskets) are generally smaller than the ones in the regular lines and there are six self checkouts for the self checkout line, so the line waiting for self checkout needs to be about >6X longer than the regular checkout lines before it starts to make sense to switch over (which sometimes happens just before major holidays, when the lines get longer and additionally some of the maximally loaded shopping carts migrate into the self checkout line)
I haven’t figured out any advantage to self-checkout where you do exactly the same thing that a cashier would do, except you have to do it yourself for no discount.
My store has portable scanners so I scan each item as it goes into my own bags in my cart. It takes me about 15 seconds to checkout–all I have to do is scan the scanner, and wave my credit card. It saves having to pile a cart with groceries, take them all out, then put them back into bags. Much more efficient.
The store I frequent has/had that too. I tried it. Half the time the bar code you needed to scan was not there or the scanner couldn’t read it… Mix that in with a quarter of the people there shopping where on vacation and where lost anyway, and, well, it did not work out too well.
Yep, this is me. I don’t need “personal attention” to buy some groceries. My shopping trips are never longer than ten minutes; get it, get out with my stuff, and never have to speak to anybody!
A big advantage is the single line for any of the SCO stations. With a cashier at a typical Walmart or grocery store, you pretty much always have to assess the people & carts in each line and try and guess which line will move fastest. Stores could use a single line system for ‘first available’ cashier (Marshalls & Home Goods do this) but I think they’re limited for space.
The other line always moves fastest.
. . . until you get in it.
I can’t remember the last time I had a glitch needing attention or why, it probably happens maybe once every 40 or 50 store visits. My wife likes the self-serve because that way we don’t have the cashier’s coviddy hands touching out purchases after handling items that previous customers have sneezed all over (or sneezed on their hands and touched stuff).
When these first appeared, there was a learning curve as people figured out the weight issue - don’t lean on the loading area, don’t take stuff off in mid-transaction… That “do you have bags?” was to weigh the bags by themselves, unless you brought really light bags. Some people bring plastic tubs.
I used to think cashiers were slow until I saw how fast the average customer was at scanning things. My admiration is great for the cashiers in my youth, who could type numbers into a register as fast as they could push the items down the counter.
The first stations I encountered also took cash. When our annoying Canadian ATM’s started handing out $50 bills, I found this a quick way to break the bills without being embarrassed about paying a $50 bill for $5 purchase. Now, every self checkout is non-cash, and I appreciate they allow me to wave my Apple watch - one less point where I would have to touch Covid from previous customers. (They used to wipe the touch areas and loading area down between customers, but have dispensed with that little bit of theatre lately)
I just bought a new computer at Costco. The attendant uses the scanning gun for a large or heavy item like that, but over a certain amount tap does not work and I (or rather, my wife) have to insert my credit card and type the PIN. That’s why I keep a small bottle of sanitizer in the car. She handles the stuff, and I with clean hands provide her with the squirt of sanitizer, and open the car door so she doesn’t have to touch it until she’s clean. Self-checkouts have gone a long way to making us feel safer about some aspects of shopping.
I feel were only a wave or two away from people roaming the streets carrying a bell and chanting “unclean, unclean” 
They don’t. Every grocery store I use has signs at the self-check about it. I don’t buy alcohol anyway, so doesn’t bother me.
I either go to stores with really obnoxious self-checks or just have bad luck, because probably 1/3 or more of my efforts to use the things wind up with a need for employee help, for things like “the bag moved a fraction of an inch when I put an item in it and the machine freaked out about an unexpected item”. I much prefer to go to a staffed checkout unless lines are totally insane.
Walmart’s app offers scan-and-go if you have the membership (I do, since it saves me a bundle on delivery fees). If you’re not dealing with produce, it’s great, except for the wait in the long self-check line to scan the QR code to finalize the payment. They really need to reserve a checkout for scan-and-go users, and I don’t think that even works with weighed items like produce.
The app for the store where I work now lets you use your smartphone as a scanner.
We put in more self-serve at my store not so much to save labor costs as because we couldn’t get enough people hired right now.
Our stations no longer weigh anyone. There is a camera over the checkout, though, that film what’s going on and (allegedly) has sufficient AI to identify some things and detect some problems.
The whole check out thing varies a lot with the people involved. Some folks never want to interact with a human and insist on self-checkout. Some people loathe self-checkout and only want to interact with a cashier. Our store tries to accommodate both. There is a third category who should not be allowed to use a self-checkout because they are incapable of following directions and the machine, unlike a human being, can’t work around that. To be honest, there is a category of customer that has difficulty operating their own selves but, again, we try to accommodate them.
Between the attendant (1 for every 6 self-checkouts) and the AI camera a percentage of potential theft is stopped but the official policy is not to stop someone determined to leave without paying. But our theft rate does go up with heavier self-checkout use.
Although lately thieves have taken to setting fires in the aisles in order to distract staff and then run out of the store with merchandise so, honestly, theft through the self-scan checkouts is not the worst of all possible worlds. Nobody hurt as of yet, but with that we not only lose the shoplifted stuff but also the stuff that gets burned.
I can just see a station that announces “PUT THOSE DOUGHNUTS BACK”. 
But I do appreciate your post. Very clear.
Setting fires in the aisles? 
I hadn’t heard of that. Is it a local phenomenon?
I’m surprised they bother. Most places in North America have a policy of “don’t confront shoplifters”. There was an item in the news about one store in Canada, pre Covid, where the clerk confronted a thief trying to take a jacket and got his throat slashed. There have been news items about places like Walmart in the USA where someone tried to stop a shoplifter, ended up in hospital, then got fired by Walmart since trying to stop a thief violates their policy. The problem apparently is worst in San Francisco where allegedly a large number of stores downtown as closing due to brazen thefts. I saw (in the year before Covid) some guy walk out of a Safeway carrying a basket full of meat.
The self-checkout may have a wider aisle than the cashier lanes, but usually there’s an employee standing right there too.
I do note that many large stores now are abandoning “open concept”. There are the chrome fences and entrance gates installed now that make it difficult to exit without walking past one of the cashiers, where presumably the cameras get a good look at everyone, and the exit door often has a camera discretely mounted near eye level to get better views of customers’ faces.
I had a client a couple of years ago who attempted to shoplift at the Walmart self checkout by grabbing a bunch of individual Kool Aid packets (15 cents??) and then concealing each under a more expensive item, say a package of steaks, and would slide the steaks across the scanner. The scanner would read the hidden Kool Aid packet and ring up 15 cents, but it looked to anyone who was only paying modest attention that she took the steak, slid it across the scanner, the machine made a beep, so all was well.
If you were paying attention, you would notice that she was my client, so not all was well. Walmart store security watches those monitors from behind the curtain. When they noticed a person buying a bunch of individual Kool Aid packets, they then looked at the camera and saw a cart full of real items. Busted.
So, do you insist on a retainer, then wait until the check clears before agreeing to represent the thief?
God, I hope so. And brief. We already have plenty of stress in retail.
The perpetrators were caught on video but, of course, the shoplifters are the “customer” we can rely on most to wear masks these days. Before they hit our store they apparently were setting fires in a Walmart across the state line in Illinois. The authorities are, needless to say, very interested in tracking these folks down.
Our Meijer has that, but they also have weigh stations near the produce that will make a little label to put on it.
I have a case of Kool Aid packets in the office. 
That’s it!