Self check-out should be for maximum 5-5 products, no more. They should be Fast lane only.
I would be sad to lose my beloved self checkout :( I still want real people and full service lanes for bigger / more complicated purchases, but daily small purchases are much more relaxing self-serve.
Many likely believe self-checkout saves time compared to a cashier lane, but the opposite may be true.
Oh actual cashiers are faster no doubt, but they're almost too fast. They'll spin 15 items through in 3 seconds and I can't check prices or bag fast enough. Once I've paid I still have a minute of bagging with next in line pushing me down and 2 minutes of reading the receipt prices left... in self check out I like being able to catch prices errors as they ring up and have less pressure bagging.
In my personal experience, especially in recent years, cashiers are often not even faster than self-checkout (though I’ve often experienced bagging pressure, lol). They’re either chatty extroverts who slow everything down because they’re socializing too much, or they’re new employees who don’t seem to know how to do their job yet (I assume this is prevalent due to high turnover, which is increasingly common).
In North Italy almost all groceries stores offer
Self checkout: where you do your groceries and at the end you scan the item one by one
Advanced self checkout (you are registered to the store): you get a PDA and you scan and bag all the groceries while you roam the store. Then you scan a qr, you get the total, pay and go. No Id checks for alcol or anything (sometimes you get a random partial re-reading where you get an sales person coming and scanning 3 items at random from your bag to check if you scanned them, or a total re-read)
Normal slow cashier point
Advanced self checkout is something I would never give back. Even if I buy a lot of things, the quick payment process is so quick that nothing compares.
I can enter and leave a store in under 10 minutes buying a lot of stuff (note that I go there walking multiple time per week)
I’m pretty sure delivery made it obsolete?
Curbside delivery is awesome, in many situations.
And they can afford to leave a few checkers in there for the situations that call for in-store shopping. That’s where self checkout would fail anyway.
I use self-checkout occasionally. On the one hand I don't absolutely hate if I have a few items. Yea, I cannot scan nearly as quickly as the pros. Which is fine if I have three things. Luckily I have mever either been accused of theft myself or seen it happen to anyone else.
That said, I will absolutely not be sad to see these machines go. Nothing of value will be lost.
Hire more cashiers and pay them a living wage so they don't have to immedeately sign up for food stamps right after being accepted into employment. Our government should not be subsidizing the billionaires, who are all mentally unwell from having long since surpassed mere riches.
I'm pretty sure I stolen bottle of wine because of the self checkout.
I'm bought a bunch of stuff and some wine, I scan to the bottle and it beeped and I put it in the bag but then no one came to ID me when it came time to paying, presumably it somehow didn't register.
May be that they used a camera with face age guessing
My main issue with self checkout is simple. They constantly incorrectly flag me for shoplifting and then proceed to show my shiny bald head from top down to everyone within 20 feet on the checkout screen. It is not a flattering angle.
I had one pull this shit on me like six or seven times, and the funny thing is it was because of a pharmacy bag in the basket, so what do I do now? I run the pharmacy bag over the scanner, it doesn't do anything, I put it in the bag, and it doesn't complain, which tells me if I actually was stealing, it actually wouldn't be going off.
They could have saved so much time and money by just paying the cashiers a living wage.
But dehumanizing the workers seemed so much fun!
All self-checkouts I see around here are either completely empty, or full of workers who have to help the people using them, at least about 1 worker for every 4 self-checkout stations.
The only self checkout machines I've ever seen that actually seem to save time are the ones in IKEA. That's only because people are buying such bulky heavy items that they don't bother weighing them. It's the scales that cause all the problems, they are sensitive enough that they can detect if you put so much as a single piece of paper on them but are I'll let down by the fact no one weighs the original product.
Oh there's an unexpected item in the bagging area is their, could it possibly be that loaf of bread I just scanned? No apparently not because this product is overweight by a whole nanogram.
I was astounded the other day when I visited a town that had a nice busy grocery store. It was like what I imagine the 70's were like. They had 20 lanes OPEN with cashiers quickly and efficiently ringing up items, much faster than I could, with baggers neatly and efficiently filling the bags. There were no waiting lines because everyone found a cashier lane to walk right up to as the last person was finishing up.
It was ten times faster than a self checkout.
I rarely see that anymore. Its usually one lone cashier and a bunch of people waiting for a self checkout machine.
I see that a lot in more expensive stores in more bougie areas.
I don't see it much at all in my poor bitch ass stores.
At our grocery store, their self checkout hates me because I apparently scan things too fast.
Good. Fuck self check out.
I've said this many times, but self checkout as a thing isnt inherently bad. They are a perfectly viable alternative for people who only grabbed a couple things, or something they find personally embarrassing and don't want to have a cashier see, or dont want to be social/deal with people.
What made it bad is that these stores replaced 90% of their checkout lanes with self checkout, then refused to have anyone operate any of the checkout lanes. Which sucks for anyone buying more than a couple things. If you have a full cart for your monthly shopping, going through self checkout is like a 40 minute ordeal cause theres no counter space or anything (and i shouldnt be expected to do that much work to check myself out unless you are giving me like a 20% discount for doing it).
I'm glad to see them reducing the number of self checkout lanes, but i hope they keep at least a couple.
Yeah, it really should've been kept as a 15 items or less lane.
I would say even less, really. 5 items or less.
I'd say instead make an aisle and cart design for the store such that the store's shopping carts would not be able to enter the self-checkout. Essentially, each shopper would be limited to what they can carry in a basket or two, with the added limitation that the checkout bagging area is only big enough for 2 baskets that cannot be removed once you start.
Thats way to much of a stretch. Cause no ones gonna invest in new shopping carts for every store, and to make it too narrow for a cart to enter would be uncomfortably narrow for people.
and its unnecessary, just have maybe, depending on the size of the store, 2-4 self checkouts. and have a cashier on hand at all times to handle cart loads. 2 or more for high traffic hours. a lot simpler solution.
I personally love self checkout. The option for the five finger discount is such a great benefit.
Pretty funny coincidence here

This feels surreal, self checkout is insanely normal here and theres no scales and or other sensors besides normal cctv. Switzerland, for context.
I'm mixed.
I dislike peopling in person, and I hate lines with a passion, but I also hate putting cashiers out of business, running the register myself, and waiting for one person in charge of 17 registers to come over and figure out WTF just went wrong with the checkout process, which is also peopleing and lines.
At this point I find the errors are pretty rare and much prefer self-checkout, mainly because it’s faster, and as you put it, I often don’t care for peopling.
The article talks about time savings but it was always about labor costs and I have a hard time believing it didn't deliver on that front.
If you put your blinders on and only look at that one line on the spreadsheet, it was probably "successful" in that regard. They pay fewer employees, full stop.
But that doesn't take into account the fact that the machines themselves are extremely expensive up front, have a nontrival setup cost, require ongoing maintenance, assuredly these days come with some manner of mandatory service contract attached, and the monetary losses from theft on the machines are huge. So whether or not any large businesses actually came out ahead on the proposition as a whole is questionable, and I don't have the data to support a conclusion there either way.
It certainly always saves me time. Especially when I cut out doing the part where I pay.
This probably has a wide latitude of success depending on whether it's a high trust or low trust society.
I definitely prefer self checkout, I'm already shopping for myself why not just checkout myself.
Think about it, were already doing the Labour the shopkeeper used to do by picking our own grocery, so is self checkout not just the logical next step.
Outside of wages and the evilness of Walmart and shit I'm just talking about pure tech and grocery stores that actually pay a living wage.
Also, it's quicker and I don't have to talk to anyone.
The machines have cameras and are recording you. Yes I know they also have cameras around the cashier's place, but not staring you in the fucking face. Also I can pay in cash.
Uh you can pay in cash at the self checkout as well? I've never had an issue doing so.
Often enough to be annoying there is only one checkout machine of many that accepts cash, and a bunch of people are lining up for that one machine.
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