This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Got a dozen cans of soup. Scanned ten cans of soup. Got two pounds of bulk pine nuts ($34.99/lb). Paid for two pounds of bulk barley ($2.49/lb). Etc.
“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue" -- Gabe Newell
Oh come on, really?
Don't get me wrong, I don't care about some big chain losing some money, for me it's a matter of principle to not fuck with the system unless really needed.
Two cans of soup, I don't care. But pine nuts? Cheating the system for some "luxury" goods and not some essentials is pretty low.
Corporate is cheating the system just to save a few bucks in wages. I see it as OP balancing the books.
It depends on the country, but in the US I see nothing wrong with this. Wage disparity is so high here that taking items from a store owned by billionaires doesn't feel like much of a crime. I wouldnt do it, personally, unless I was less well off financially, but I am most definitely not going to judge someone else for doing it.
Self-checkout systems are already old fashioned. Most stores in my town have apps for that now, where customers scan items as they bag them in their own bags while walking through the store and then just beep out. This removes the need for a queue, the payment terminal, the receipt and the stupid exit gate. Customers are allegedly randomly checked, but I've never seen that.
Unstaffed tills were supposed to revolutionise shopping.
They were?
I just watched a comedy special where the comedian calls them the "the shoplifter lanes".
Well, I work in retail exactly in this field for chain of roughly 100 small grocery stores mostly in rural villages in central/eastern Europe. We do have couple larger stores, where larger doesn't mean big in global scale, for us it means they need 2 cash registers most of the day.
We do have few stores equipped with self check out registers too. There are 3 types for us and all of them with different pros and cons.
Bigger stores. We have 2 stores where we installed SCOs as an addition to regular check outs. It works great if you have just a couple items and don't want to wait for those 3 people standing in line. I prefer to use them with most of my shopping there, because they are often empty/instantly available unlike regular check outs.
We have 3 small village stores with one regular check out that we expanded with one SCO. These shops are open 24/7, while cashiers are there for roughly 8 hours a day and the rest is full automatic. You get in through ID, pick your stuff, check out and leave. It is great idea, but prety novel in this region and people are not used to it yet. Remember we're talking about villages with less than 1000 people.
We also have 2 completely self check out stores. Meaning there's no live personnel tobinteract with, only one person to go in, refill shelves and leavd. There's only one SCO and it also works 24/7 as number 2. This is in the smallest villages, with under 500 people and it's pretty successful so far. People are happy they have place to shop locally, because if it wasn't for this they'd be left without shop whatsoever.
Just my 2 cents. Also bear in mind this is Europe, where people are definitely not used to take long drives very often. Especially not because your everyday shopping needs. Be happy to answer if you had some questions.
