Telegraph- Self-checkouts have been a self-inflicted disaster for Britain
As customers grow frustrated and shoplifters fill their boots, bosses of grocery giants are finally asking themselves the question customers are asked at self-checkout kiosks every day. Do you wish to continue? Not really, as it turns out. Having ruthlessly replaced cashier staff with self-checkout terminals to speed up purchases and save on wages, boardrooms now want the humans back.
Fix the technology to stop the thieves.
They will work. I don’t need a cashier to check my groceries out.
Same here. I’ve been checking out my own groceries for years. I much prefer it, and can bag my own groceries much better than any cashier I’ve encountered as anywhere
Apparently, hiring three new cashiers is still cheaper than one lawsuit for stopping a shoplifter.
What We Were Promised
‘IBM RFID Commercial – The Future Supermarket’
https://youtu.be/wzFhBGKU6HA?feature=shared
What We Got
‘How the Shoplifting Epidemic Is Changing Grocery Stores’
https://youtu.be/wM4aDxAyyiU?si=MqClHhFt7hfV6OAZ
Some stores work amazingly well. Home Depot and Rona are excellent. I’ve never had a problem. Grocery stores on the other hand are horrible. If I’m checking out any more than three items I will experience a problem that sends the self-checkout monitor over to fix. The grocery stores also do a very bad job at listing non-barcoded items for lookup. There’s no cross reference for some very basic searches. The other day I bought a red pepper. There was no barcode and no produce number sticker. I used the search and started by typing “red.” 12 items showed up. Some of them didn’t even have “red” in the description and not one of the items was a red pepper. Same thing happened when I typed in “pepper.” Finally, I had to ask the monitor, who took three tries to find it. Turns out you had to type “shepherd” because it was a red shepherd pepper. For the number of times this happens they’d be better off with more cashiers.
Once upon a time, I worked for a company that built the production lines for electronics in China. We had to design the UI for workstations that would be manned by people whom, two weeks prior, had never seen any technology more spohisticated than an ox plow. It was an interesting challenge – for instance, you can’t assume that red octagons and green circles intuitively mean “stop” and “go” to rural Chinese workers.
My point is that it’s entirely possible to create a simple terminal UI, they just don’t. And they’re all junked up with so many ads for charities or store credit cards or whatever else they’re pushing that any speed benefit from using the self-checkouts is gone.
Response to Steve E…Why the hell would you waste that time acting as your own cahier? I love exchanging pleasantries with my real, human, cashiers. Call it an old school communitarian thing, I guess. I have joked about her encyclopedic knowledge of all the arcane food codes. Try it, and support real people employed by grocers. And, despite the grocer magnate flaws, they do employ thousands of people, from cahiers to butchers to truckers, and so on. Context, people.
Have a nice day.
Because they did away with the express checkout and they seldom have more than two tills open at a time lined up four and five deep with 20 or more items each. And frankly most of the cashiers are about as engaging as a wet rag. That’s the typical grocery store where I live.
I have two sons who both work in grocery. I support them. I support an independent Italian deli and bakery where they actually create products in house. Where they slice meat and cheese to order. Where the cashiers engage you in conversation and are pleasant. I support a local Asian grocery store where there are people actually working in the produce section, at the butcher counter and at the seafood counter. They actually help you.
So context people yourself and spare me the condescension.
You defeated your own argument.
Peace.
You are assuming all cashiers have an even rudimentary understanding of the English language. And I’m here to tell you most do not.
– And speaking of the ‘rona, self-checkout areas have been scanned by PMed-types and found to be ROTTEN with fecal matter (i.e., “shit”} from all the types who use the grocery store washroom and don’t bother to wash their hands. And fecal transfer is one of the most prolific paths for spreading the ‘rona – or whatever epidemic they decide to lock us down over, next time.
I refuse to use ’em – got a real hate-on for fat-cat grocery chain owners (looking at you, Galen Weston) who happily throw-out all their min-wage cashiers to pocket an extra buck (yeah, I’m a good union man……)
Self checkouts require an inherently honest population. They will never work in a country overrun by turd worlders.
I used to favor the humans (because it’s a job), but often they would screw up the operation. Double scan an item, forget the item was on special. Looking at you Canadian Tire. But what’s the use of self-scan when there is a person watching you to offer you some kind of extended warranty or credit card offer (Home Depot).
Guess what? The abuse of self-checkout is directly proportional to the ratio of diversity type individuals within that area.
” … led to a rise in middle-class shoplifters who think, …”
Correction to their conclusion: what the middle class shoplifters are expressing is … “those DREGS got away with it … so I’m a sucker for paying anything at all”. They get to nick their food … and so bloody well shall I.
Government induced inflation doesn’t help.
If people (ignorant arseholes) think the grocery store is to blame (because their government masters told them so – via a fckfacebook bot) for higher prices then they’ll skip-scan and get themselves a free bag O chips or two.
I am fairly good with technology, but absolutely HATE self check-outs. Next thing you know, it will be like in China or Russia and they will be sending us first to unpack in the warehouses and then pick food in the fields!
“I am fairly good with technology, but absolutely HATE self check-outs.”
Me too…I won’t use one, and have abandoned more than one shopping cart full of groceries when they have tried to f0rce me to do so by cleverly (or so they thought) closing the regular checkouts earlier.
Hey, Safeway/Superstore/SaveOn/Walmart? I DON’T WORK FOR YOU. I’m a customer…you work for me, to get me to come into your store and spend my money there ( and hopefully come back over and over again). You want to entice me to scan and bag my own groceries? Then offer me an incentive, like a discount or free bags or something.
I was in a local Walmart recently, and found that their self-checkout lanes had been cordoned off, and you were therefore required to use the regular checkout lanes. Considering the demographics of the area around that particular store, I can’t say I was surprised… rather many homeless encampments near there.
“shoplifters fill their boots”
Whatever the reason, that’s not it. Employee fraud (often with accomplices) was actually a bigger chunk of lost revenue in most jurisdictions than plain old shoplifting. Although that may have changed now that it’s no longer illegal to steal or loot if you’re non-white.
I prefer a human being to self scan. Especially if they’re attractive 🙂
Where the heck are you shopping?
Around here, cashiers are either teenagers, gay dudes, or women who were too ugly to be truck stop waitresses
I’d take any one of those three options any day rather than Panjeet who can only nod her head and point at the screen for how much you owe.
I admit, there’s not many, but they’re out there. Usually they’re the high school dropout type – a little rough around the edges.
We have a … a … well … I’m guessing … a “gender fluid” black man who flirts with every man he gets to entrap while scanning prices.
Yeah … ai don’t simply look for the shortest line … I look for who (or what) the checker is.
unsupervised self checkout was tried in another London the one in Canaduh in 1969.
l know because the folks who went there from the hippie house laughed and gloated about how a ‘dozen’ corn reenacted Christ and the loaves of bread (on sunday they had church with a real minister in the same bldg so the joke was definitely not lost). iirc the place closed soon after.
We be heading back to the days of Consumers Distributing where you hand your list to someone who disappears into the back and you hopefully hear from them again when they have your stuff ready and incorrectly pronounce your name to come get and pay for it.
That or the Wally Mart way of ordering online and going to the lane behind the store where the pickup door is located, next to the usual back lane busy nesses also going on.
Do Ontario Beer Stores still have you pay up front and the cashier calls the back with your request and it comes out on the roller belt?
What Piggly Wiggly brought us, the self serf grocery store, will be history again.
Nothing like having a hockey game go into overtime and being able to pick up a six pack at the depanneur.
At minimum wages anywhere between 15 and 20 bucks an hour, get used to seeing a lot more self-checkouts. If you want more cashiers at the till, eliminate the minimum wage.
Self-checkouts have been great for me. The issue is that the stores got rid of so many cashiers – but didn’t increase the SC lines – that the people who wanted (and need) a cashier are in the SC lines slowing everyone down.
I refuse to use ’em… I want to deal with humans!
15 years of Police experience told me this was a stupid idea right at the start!!!