self checkout, opinions

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Ordinarily, I refuse to use self-checkout. I hate them. I would rather wait and have an employee do it even if there were six others waiting ahead of me in the same checkout line. Yesterday (Sunday) I was at Kroger at 8:00 am and only self-checkout was available. So I bit the bullet and started ringing up my 6 yogurts. Then I needed to ring up two cucumbers. It wasn't blatantly obvious how to ring up produce, so I pressed the ATTENDANT button. She came immediately and did what was needed, but spoke to me with quite an attitude....as if I was supposed to know how it was done. Good thing I was not in full ballistic mode, because I should've told her off...but I didn't. There will not be a repeat of this. If somehow I am forced to use self-checkout again, I will just act out my ignorance and make them do it anyway.
 
I like self checkout - when it works properly. If I need an over-ride for 5 out of the 6 items I'm buying, then it isn't working properly.
 
All the fruit and produce should have bar code stickers or stickers telling you what it is. The exceptions are lettuce and cabbage etc. With those you can use the touch screen which uses pictures of the produce.

A lot of this is first time jitters and that will pass after a few runs.

Self checkout has been around since the 90's. I'm surprised some parts of the country seem to be slow in adapting it. Do I use it all the time? No, but if I'm in a hurry it's great and sometimes I will be directed to one if the lines are full and the attendant will help with checkout.

The Walmart near me has two self check sections, both set up in a somewhat circle with about 10-12 stations in each. Those are quicker to go through than the ones set up in straight lines.
 
Originally Posted by ls1mike
I know a lady who has worked at Fred Meyer for 20 years. She said they hired a few more people for the self checkout.

I hear a lot of people say it takes jobs, based of her account it did not.

Think about that scenario. Self-checkouts are typically manned by (1) employee. I've seen stores with 4-10 self-checkouts watched over by (1) employee. The space they take up eliminates multiple, old-fashioned checkout lines. There's really no reason a store would hire more employees. More likely, a cashier or two quit because they were assigned different jobs, didn't like doing that, and quit. The store then hired (2) part-time workers to replace (1) (almost) full-time worker.
 
The jobs market is changing. Stores are starting to employ robots for cleaning, scanning shelves and security. Online shopping for groceries is really taking off. I haven't used that yet.
 
Originally Posted by GrtArtiste
Ordinarily, I refuse to use self-checkout. I hate them. I would rather wait and have an employee do it even if there were six others waiting ahead of me in the same checkout line. Yesterday (Sunday) I was at Kroger at 8:00 am and only self-checkout was available. So I bit the bullet and started ringing up my 6 yogurts. Then I needed to ring up two cucumbers. It wasn't blatantly obvious how to ring up produce, so I pressed the ATTENDANT button. She came immediately and did what was needed, but spoke to me with quite an attitude....as if I was supposed to know how it was done. Good thing I was not in full ballistic mode, because I should've told her off...but I didn't. There will not be a repeat of this. If somehow I am forced to use self-checkout again, I will just act out my ignorance and make them do it anyway.

Kroger has the worst system. Walmart used to be horrible when they started but have invested a lot into usability and space design so now it works quite well.
 
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
Originally Posted by ls1mike
I know a lady who has worked at Fred Meyer for 20 years. She said they hired a few more people for the self checkout.

I hear a lot of people say it takes jobs, based of her account it did not.

Think about that scenario. Self-checkouts are typically manned by (1) employee. I've seen stores with 4-10 self-checkouts watched over by (1) employee. The space they take up eliminates multiple, old-fashioned checkout lines. There's really no reason a store would hire more employees. More likely, a cashier or two quit because they were assigned different jobs, didn't like doing that, and quit. The store then hired (2) part-time workers to replace (1) (almost) full-time worker.

They may even intentionally make their work horrible so that they quit. They avoid paying for unemployment if people quit on their own.
 
Love it in the grocery store when I have a few items because I don't have to wait for a dirt bag smoker to have the cashier run over and find their specific cigs. Also seriously annoying when someone pulls out the checkbook to pay or counts out exact change and talks away in the express line.


I think the self checkout has gone a long way in terms of User Experience etc and its well improved at Home Depot and decent at Walmart. I think they should have a limit of items you can do at self checkout as I watch crazy people ring up 40 items instead of going to cashier who would whiz thru it.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
The jobs market is changing. Stores are starting to employ robots for cleaning, scanning shelves and security. Online shopping for groceries is really taking off. I haven't used that yet.



Online groceries though requires more great jobs to support the technical infrastructure and then the people not going into store have people working in store that fill their carriages with groceries and bring them to the curb. It is a shift in jobs. People always think automation takes away jobs however to enable automation it requires really good jobs.

I think it simply takes away jobs for people not willing to adapt or learn anything new in their life and expect to show up to work and get paid and not self learn.
 
Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by PimTac
The jobs market is changing. Stores are starting to employ robots for cleaning, scanning shelves and security. Online shopping for groceries is really taking off. I haven't used that yet.



Online groceries though requires more great jobs to support the technical infrastructure and then the people not going into store have people working in store that fill their carriages with groceries and bring them to the curb. It is a shift in jobs. People always think automation takes away jobs however to enable automation it requires really good jobs.

I think it simply takes away jobs for people not willing to adapt or learn anything new in their life and expect to show up to work and get paid and not self learn.







What I have noticed is that when online shopping started there were one or two workers with regular shopping carts pulling orders. In about a years time that has progressed to several workers with larger carts. My guess is that each worker is pulling items for multiple shoppers.

I know someone who works at Walmart. She says that online sales have skyrocketed.
 
Originally Posted by Imp4
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by 1978elcamino
I feel if Im paying for merchandise I should also have service and support from the company. With self check out half of the experience is gone.


Typical millennial. Don't know about you, but when I go shopping, I go because I need to buy stuff and want to get in and out in the least amount of time. I don't go shopping for an "experience."

Good grief....You don't know if 1978elcamino is a millennial.
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Let me clarify this by first saying im not a millennial. Second, the "service" I mentioned is actually ringing up my stuff, weighing produce and scanning coupons, the statement was not to come across as a sense of entitlement. My point was to not have to learn someone else's job when I go shopping.
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by Imp4
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by 1978elcamino
I feel if Im paying for merchandise I should also have service and support from the company. With self check out half of the experience is gone.


Typical millennial. Don't know about you, but when I go shopping, I go because I need to buy stuff and want to get in and out in the least amount of time. I don't go shopping for an "experience."

Good grief....You don't know if 1978elcamino is a millennial.
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I wasn't saying he is a millennial, just that the comment is typical of millennials.
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It's amusing that in a single thread we have people that chastise "millennials" (whether or not it was a millennial "saying") because they don't want to scan their own groceries but then we have the same people that say "it's your job, do it or get a new one."
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by 1978elcamino
I feel if Im paying for merchandise I should also have service and support from the company. With self check out half of the experience is gone.


Typical millennial. Don't know about you, but when I go shopping, I go because I need to buy stuff and want to get in and out in the least amount of time. I don't go shopping for an "experience."


I would say OKAY BOOMER.

The comment is not generation specific a my MIL 70 would say the same thing. She enjoys engaging the cashier etc and complains about the machines.
 
I don't particularly care for them. If I have one or two items, and the regular check-out lanes are busy, I'll use them. But I feel if I'm doing the job of the cashiers, I should get an automatic discount (or paycheck) for doing their job.
 
I feel like it is similar to people who balked at removal of full serve fuel stations and the transition to self service in majority of USA.

People balked but now it is accepted practice where full serve is the exception not the default out there at least in New England.
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by 1978elcamino
I feel if Im paying for merchandise I should also have service and support from the company. With self check out half of the experience is gone.


Typical millennial. Don't know about you, but when I go shopping, I go because I need to buy stuff and want to get in and out in the least amount of time. I don't go shopping for an "experience."


IMO that's actually an older boomer's attitude (not 1978elcamino) rather than the millennial. atikovi's way of blaming everything on the millennial sounds to me more like a boomer too.

Regarding to self checkout, I love them, and I think the stores having 1 guy watching 6 lanes are sort of make sense. I don't want to wait behind one guy trying to chat with the cashier or the other way around, I want things scanned and just get out of my way. This is not the day of general stores where the mom and pop owners try to sell you something and talk to you about what you want to buy or not to buy, I just want to get in and out without dealing with other humans, and if they can do it with less cost that's fine by me.

One thing I want is to find a better way to cancel item if you change your mind. I don't want to wait 30 seconds because the "cashier" is helping someone else, just let me cancel it and put it back please, why do I have to wait because I accidentally double scan or the coupons didn't go through? The problem is the machines aren't perfect yet, not the concept of self checkout being bad.

Online order groceries + self checkout pickup would be even better, I want to do my shopping checkout at 1am on my phone in bed and then pick them up at 6pm fast, between getting off work and picking up kids.
 
Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by PimTac
The jobs market is changing. Stores are starting to employ robots for cleaning, scanning shelves and security. Online shopping for groceries is really taking off. I haven't used that yet.



Online groceries though requires more great jobs to support the technical infrastructure and then the people not going into store have people working in store that fill their carriages with groceries and bring them to the curb. It is a shift in jobs. People always think automation takes away jobs however to enable automation it requires really good jobs.

I think it simply takes away jobs for people not willing to adapt or learn anything new in their life and expect to show up to work and get paid and not self learn.


As a whole it has to reduce. You can't pay those developer 300k a year without reducing about 1.5M of labor cost (typical equation is 20% of the software cost is engineer salaries) to justify it. So that 1.5M of labor cost eliminated means probably 20-30 full time cashiers hours getting cut, by the 1 senior developer job being created.

To be honest that's the future unless you want to join an Amish community living the good ole fashion Amish life, are you willing to leave the civilization? We have been doing that since the stone age though, and in the long term that's how things work in humanity in every single culture.
 
Another thought... at the Meijer I used to shop at exclusively I got to know the night crew pretty well because I'd be in there 2-3 times a week at 4am. I asked about the transition to self checkouts, they all said "We've been hiring for cashiers for the last 4 years, no one wants to do it!"
 
It can be convenient if your just getting two items. I have mixed opinions on if it's the way it should be always. If they are saving money then it should be passed on to consumers too.
 
Originally Posted by 02SE
But I feel if I'm doing the job of the cashiers, I should get an automatic discount (or paycheck) for doing their job.

They'll tell you that they didn't raise prices because of the cost-savings they've had from implementing self-checkouts so you did get a "discount", in a roundabout way.
 
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