I don’t know about other WalMarts in other parts of the world, but at least 2 of the 6 WalMarts in the area have finally adopted the self-service checkout lanes. No longer do I have to deal with waiting in one huge line at 3AM when purchasing my macaroni and cheese and water while the dimwitted cashier does a price check on a $20 phone card!!
<3 self service checkouts.
They have those in supercenters around here (MN). But every single time I’ve tried to use one, there’s been some kind of “problem”. So, not only did I have to wait for someone to come and clear my transaction, I had to get in a line anyway.
I hate Wal*Mart. 
Several chains around here have them and they just don’t work! “Please place the item in the bag.” Um, I did. It’s a seed packet. It’ll never register. Can’t move bags off when they get full, odd size items that can’t fit are a no go, and on and on. I repeat: they just don’t work.
I want to buy a gallon of milk: It takes 6 button presses to complete the transaction, waiting each time for the computer to go on to the next thing. You only need one max. They are in no way time savers.
As an ex-Computer Science prof, if a student turned in one of these systems as a project, they get an “F”. Horrible design, horrible execution. Throw them all out and start over from scratch.
Wow, very strong. I’ve honestly never had a problem with these… I’ve used them in WalMart, Kroger, and a couple other local stores. Perhaps there’s some kind of cross-brand quality issue. Nevertheless, I just bought about $120 worth of groceries from WalMart without a hitch. shrug
Cheese and water?
Ozarka and Kraft finally merged, huh?
New and Improved Water! Now with REAL CHEESE!
They just put them in here. I injured my shoulder a few weeks ago and I’m doing “greeter” duty. One disadvantage to these “conveniences” is that we must now be more vigilant about checking receipts. Lovely! :rolleyes:
I hate having to get my stuff checked as much as the next guy. Don’t get angry with the greeter – if s/he neglects to check an item that is[list=a]
[li]not in a bag and[/li][li]valuable (subjective, I know. How do they expect me to know how much that big bag of dogfood cost anyways?)[/li][li]Hi Opal![/li][/list] the greeter is at least going to have an “unpleasant discussion” with one of the managers.
If you don’t like getting your stuff checked, don’t blame the greeter/threaten to never shop there again/tell them you’re going to get them fired/promise retaliation. Instead, go find a manager and give them an earful. Give them TWO earfuls. Blame them/threaten to never shop there again/tell them you’re going to get them fired/promise retaliation. Follow them home and camp on their doorstep. Why should you do all this? Because they’re the guys who tell me to look at that damn reciept, and no matter what you say to me, you can only threaten to get me fired. The guy who told me to check your reciept actually possesses that power. I know I’m there to make you happy and fulfill all your wishes, but it’s the manager who tells me what I may (and may not) do in pursuit of those goals. If you’re really in such a G-ddamn hurry, just refuse to show me the reciept and blow on outta there – I don’t have the authority (nor the inclination) to chase after you and tackle you.[/hijack] (Yes, I suppose it has been one of those nights!)
Anyhow, to get back on track, our Walmart shuts down the self-serve stands at eleven p.m. and doesn’t reopen them until 7 or 8 in the morning (what a waste).
–SSgtBaloo
They do that at the ones in the Kroger and Bi-Lo here too. I suppose that if there aren’t that many people coming in, keeping one person available to cover the self-check lanes when necessary wouldn’ t be worth it. The K-Mart nearest me has taken to covering them up and keeping them unavailable.
I was at a Walmart here a couple of days ago and went to the self check. An older female employee was there stocking candy (or just rearranging it, I really couldn’t tell) and when I was using it, she reached toward every item I had as I took it out of the basket, as if she was going to help me move it across the scanner. It was kind of weird.
That said, I’d much rather have the self check if I’m only buying a few things - it really can get me in and out quickly.
Oh, great! WalMart goes from live cashiers paid at welfare-eligible wages, to unpaid customers checking themselves out. Let me know when the customer has to stay over to mop the floors. I’m no longer a WalMart customer.
At first this sounded like a fine idea. I generally try really really hard to never shop at walmart. I just don’t like it. But, my work is in a walmart parking lot, and one day I realized that I did not have a clean work shirt, so I ran to walmart to pick one up (note, work shirts for me are black shirts. wally world sells black polos for like $7)
Self service. Hooray, I think. I have one item, I have a credit card, I’ll be out in two seconds. I get in line behind one other person. Slowly, they stare at the machine in amazement. A minute passes. They begin to remove items from their cart, scan them and place them back in cart. Machine has a hissy fit. Two more minutes pass. They realize they must place items in bags. They do so. Slowly. Another minute passes. They finally finish checking out. They stare at the machine, attempting to figure out how to pay out. I bite my hands to prevent from yelling how obvious it is. Two more minutes pass. They call for help, and finally pay out.
I conclude that self service is, if possible, actually slower than the real thing.
Note: Any complaining within this post is aimed at corporate walmart. Not walmart employees who are abused for not nearly enough money an hour. It’s slow because you are understaffed. Not your fault.
A local grocery chain has installed the self-check lanes in lieu if the express lanes. I hate those things, though I use them if I have to. Half the time though, the machine won’t take my paper money or I have some item that requires employee participation anyway. And express it’s not. Not only is it slower than a well trained checker, but get behind someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing (i.e. most of our winter population) and it really slows things down.
It seems like most of your complaining is directed at those who have no idea how to work the machine, not the machine itself.
There should be 2 machines set aside for “training”.
They’re not supposed to be time savers. They’re employee savers. Instead of having four cashiers, they can put in four of the self-check things and just have one cashier to handle problems and deal with checks.
Still, they do save time for me, because the old people who take forever to check out are mostly afraid to use them and go over to the employee-operated lanes.
Yes, that is true. But I consider the entire concept a problem. There will always be people who don’t get it.
Both Kroger & Walmart use them here. If I’ve only got a few items, I always use them. Quick and pain free when combined with using debit card (don’t have to get wrinkled bills accepted).
Home Depot does still have them, and there is always a greeter nearby in case of problems. Great when I only need a screw or two and the guy ahead of me is building an entire house from the ground up (or at least that’s what his shopping cart looks like).
One of the Winn-Dixie stores (grocery chain) used to have two self-serve checkouts. They ended up taking them out (according to an employee, off the record, they were having more of a problem with theft than before). Personally, I think they just did not have the best technology - damned things kept breaking down, misreading scans, or items were barcoded improperly.
As for groceries, I now shop at Publix: they promise (and I’ve only seen them not live up to it once**) that Monday thru Friday, from 4 to 7 pm, ALL checkout registers are staffed. Damned skippy to get in after work, get my groceries, and zing on outta there in record time.
** The one time was when one of the cashiers had an asthma attack and had to leave the register. Guess who was the next in line. At least the manager took care of all three of us in line and rang us up at the service counter.
Imagine that! Would have never considered that these might make it even easier to steal!
I’ve used them a few times (Home Depot) because I’m enough of a tech geek to want to try them out. But given that I’m still prone to shopping at places that bag my groceries for me and carry them out to my car, I’m probably not the target market for this.
Calm down there buddy. I first saw these things at a Kroger supermarket months before they showed up at any Wal-Mart near me.
The problem as I see it with Wal-Mart’s self-checkout lines is that they sell too many things requiring age-checking. In other words, they have stuff like DVDs, paint, car stuff, booze, etc… all requiring age checks, and when you combine this with all the usual hillbilly tards at a Wal-Mart trying to check themselves out, this can take people much longer to check out than if they’d just waited in line for a cashier.
The thing that baffles me about people’s inability to work these self-checkouts is that it’s not like they haven’t been watching cashiers scan items for almost 25 years now. This isn’t a new technology. Yet watching people try to scan a f’king tomato never fails to amaze me.
[screeching halt]
Imagining this (both with singular and multiple tomatoes) is giving me a giggle fit right now. Thank you.
[/screeching halt]
I love them, and have chose to go to certain places just because of them.
as for:
When this happend just take a unpaid for item of about the same weight and place that in the bag, not only do you get rid of the message and can continue, you get the item for free too. (this last part was just a very bad joke)
Half the time the self-checkouts at our Wal-mart are closed, so don’t plan on using them at three am.
The more I use a self-checkout, the easier it becomes, but I’d still rather use a live checker-outer if there isn’t a line.Why? Because it’s faster, especially if I have produce. When you have to read through three screens to find the veggies you bought because there is no number code on them, or when you can find “rolls” but not “doughnuts”, or when the code stickered on your bananas comes up as invalid, that really slows you down.
Last week I had a coupon the store sent me for a free gift bag…coupon wouldn’t scan properly, needed a sales clerk who had to spend two minutes overiding the system.
One grocery chain here has self check-out that looks like a regular line…conveyor belt and all, so that you can check out large orders. Theirs is the better system because there is plenty of room, at leat until the belt becomes full and wants you to take a break to bag up groceries…which causes a problem because I can’t put the bags anywhere because my cart is still full.
But still it’s better than the ones where you have to put your scanned items directly into bags. Too many things are too light to register that you did indeed put them in the bag…Kool-aid packets, floral wire, felt squares, greeting cards. And then there is no place to rest your purse if you need to dig out your payment method (note use of trendy jargon) without setting it on the weight sensor, which then yells at you. Those systems are fine for express check-out 12 items or less, but useless for regular shopping, again because if you have a cart full, there is no place to put your filled bags unless the overseer takes pity on you and brings over another cart.