“things have gotten so bad that it has made many people need to steal, so we can’t keep self checkouts open”
They’d rather change their operations than lobby for the poorest to have enough money and not have to steal.
They’d rather change their operations than lobby for the poorest to have enough money to not have to steal.
They’d rather change their operations than
lobby for the poorest topay their employees enough money to not have to steal.I thought surely an organization of GROCERS would lobby vociferously for SNAP benefits (food stamps), at a time when onerous work requirements throw people off SNAP and overwhelm local food pantries.
Instead we get a bit of the pearlescent extraction of the meat cylinder via suction:
Although I fully agree with you, there is no gotcha here. They are greedy and want the most for themselves, that’s it.
Paying people a fair salary is other companies problem
There’s a Walmart near me that I just never bother going to because like 80% of the non-grocery items are locked behind plexiglass. There are 4 self-checkouts and 2 employees assigned to just stand there watching people to make sure they don’t shoplift. They’ve made shopping so hostile that it barely makes sense for it to be a department store at all. Might as well just go back to the old model of telling the employee what you want and then they go get it for you.
I wanted to buy some razor blades and the poor teenager at the Walmart just couldn’t get his magnet key thingie to unlock the plastic lock on the hanger holding the packages. I waited patiently for like 5 minutes and was like look I’ll fix it. I pulled down on the packaging, tore the little cardboard piece and freed the blades in like one try.
I then still paid $40 for them like a good citizen and ignored how much I was getting ripped off.
All while being watched by a million store cameras, three people at the self checkout, the camera reflecting my own image in the self checkout machine, the greeter giving me a dirty look and the detectors at the door.
Its more absurd than airport security how pointless it all is.
Which is basically what they are doing with grocery pickup.
Never thought of it that way… But yes.
I’m here with your regular reminder that is you see someone stealing food, no you didn’t.
I don’t understand. I’ve never seen someone steal food in a grocery store. I’ve helped plenty of people get more food from a grocery store than what they thought they had in their cart though.
Also you didn’t see me at the grocery store and if you did it wasn’t me
Good news, new jobs opening to fill the cashier roles. But watch they will just implement a ticket system and checkout will take 3 hours.
Yeah but tickets cost money so they will make you sign in virtually on their app
Shhhhh don’t give them any ideas
Ticketmaster execs just perked up
You have to do 2 shots of crude oil to enter a lottery for a ticket to be able to pay for a ticket so you can checkout for groceries.
How do I do that on my Linux phone?
Hopefully everyone in the place at any given time will start stealing then. Not one person is going to wait 3 hours to pay for their groceries while cold shit thaws or only for a few items because they want to keep raising prices and enshittifying every damn thing.
Pretty sure the self checkout isn’t where most people steal, why not just walk out the door with whatever you want?
You don’t steal all of it, you just miss the barcode on a couple items for the camera, so it looks innocent if somebody stops you.
Or you weigh more expensive fresh fruits & veggies as cheaper ones.
Well, it’s just a simple fact When I want something, I don’t want to pay for it I walk right through the door
Jane, were you caught stealing again?
deleted by creator
As someone who finds interacting with register attendants painful, and doesn’t steal, this is unfortunate news.
As someone who also doesn’t enjoy interacting with register attendants, but does steal, I too find this to be unfortunate news.
Agreed. Devastating.
Pulling back doesn’t necessarily mean cancelling all existing self check-out systems. It probably means they will have both, which is how it’s supposed to be, to be honest. Sometimes I just want to scan three items and leave and other times I want someone else to deal with it.
We introverts pay the price 😭
Or those who shop while stoned…
Agreed. I am sad.
They don’t interact bro
That’s sometimes part of the awkwardness. My additional gripes are completely pedantic, but hear me out:
None of the grocery chains in my area offer bagging services, so I have to wait for the attendant to scan my items, bag them myself, and then shuffle back to the register to pay. None of this is a problem, except that the human attendant rarely ever scans the items in the order that makes sense to bag them. So there’s the weird dance of waiting, pushing items aside, etc.
If I’m doing self-check, I can scan and bag using my own patented autistic process ™ that is quick, makes sense, and doesn’t crush things, and I can do it in one shot.
This is why I unload them onto the belt in the order they must be bagged
I use this method, mostly works, cashier sometimes reaches past items when scanning. 🤷 I have observed others just reloading the cart and bagging once at their vehicle in the parking lot. Only downside i see is when having weather.
I suppose that’s a solution, but you’re also doubling your responsibilities, and the price of the groceries still stays too damn high.
It doesn’t really feel like work, I just sort by weight+size in descending order
I go by uncrushable first, fragile last.
Today I learnt doing what most of the world has been doing is “doubling my responsibilities”
You can pay after they scan the first item. It won’t go through until they finish the transaction. So put stuff on conveyor. Wait for them to scan first item. Tap your card. Go pack up your bags while they’re scanning. When they’re done you’re done.
This seems highly location/payment system dependent. You can’t do it where I live, the CC terminals require the final amount to be sent to them before it will accept a card, if you scan your CC before the final amount is sent to the terminal it just gets ignored and a CC will still be requested once the cashier has sent the final amount to the terminal.
Self checkout was great for me because I’d have like 3 items and breeze on out. Now people come to them with overloaded carts because they don’t have any actual checkouts.
I swear every time I pull into a manned checkout lane at one specific store I get the nastiest look from the cashiers. There are 3 functional self checkout kiosks and the scale on all of them is slightly under a single square foot. I’m not buying a thanksgiving feast, but forgive me if my regular shopping trip is more than a single cup of yoghurt and a TV dinner, and consequently cannot all fit on the self checkout scale. It’s not like I’m asking them to open a lane just for me, they’re just upset I’ve interrupted their scrolling session.
I try not to go there often, but sometimes my goto location is closed or doesn’t have something I know I’m going to need. I know it’s not all stores or employees because my normal one is pretty good and I can generally use the kiosk without issue, but it’s so frustrating that the culture has shifted to expect all people to use the self checkout regardless of their situation. And I say this as someone who uses them regularly.
Same here - I bring one bag from home and when it gets full I stop shopping. Even waiting behind one half full shopping cart in a cashier line is slower than waiting for an available self-checkout.
Yeah, checkers are so slow. Self checkout lets you slam everything across in like 5 seconds, swipe, leave.
Easy.
Shitty thing is they won’t hire more cashiers when they shut these off.
Guessing they’ll also raise prices when they simply return to previously normal operations.
Thur raised prices when they put them in, they will raise prices when they remove them.
All actions lead to raising prices.
I really wonder who these retailers are. Like, my grocer typically has 2 human and 12 self checkout open, and it’s no question which of those is going to be faster for someone pushing less than a full cart. They don’t even have the floor space to build twelve more full service checkouts. Reminds me of the bad old days when I’d go to the store and they’d have every human checkout line open, every one of them with 5+ people in line, and it’d take 30 minutes just to check out. If you’re a retailer that only processes a couple dozen patrons an hour, then yeah, I can see where a few self-checks wouldn’t be any benefit.
Feels like we’ve reached the enshittification phase of self-checks: big stores are now so beholden to the technology that the vendors can jack up their prices to where self checks cost the store more than a full-service checkout, but they can’t go back because there’s no staff and no space.
My local grocery had self checkout for about a year before ripping them out and putting normal ones back in. They don’t seem to be understaffed.
Not all stores are awful on all fronts. They don’t have chairs for their checkout people yet though.
They aren’t bringing back cashiers, they’ll have one cashier with a massive line as a deterrent to get you to download the scan as you go app on your phone so you supply the bar code scanner at your expense and they track your phone and change the digital price tags based on your Palantir profile as you walk up.
Or the other option is Walmart has started remodeling their stores into primarily warehouses. The main entrance is badged only for picker workers to hand orders to Doordash or put app orders in people’s cars. The legacy experience entrance will be a temporary secondary option until they get enough robots to make the building fully lights out and automated. Shambling automatons will emerge from the black hell portal in the surface of The Edifice with your tampons and then run facial recognition on you and sniff your car for drug and explosive residue.
I’ll do a big shop, look shocked at the line up and just walk out. Have fun dealing with my cart.
There’s no way I’ll get an app. I get they’ll have methods to entice people but I held off getting Facebook when it was the big thing, I’ll be ready for when corpos want to fuck around.
In fact I welcome it to see how I do.
I’m pretty good at not buying from Safeway when they have an item I want on app-coupon sale.
But since tje new Trump order I’ve gone completely anti-consumerist, only getting stuff I immediately need.
I have done that a few times.
You’re just silly.
Your car itself will sniff you for drugs and explosives every time you start it and every 30 seconds thereafter, not the Walmart robot.
Didn’t realize self checkouts were such a divisive topic, like wtf I’ll take that any day of the week over standing in line behind people who have seemingly never been to a supermarket before and their shit is still standing there all over the place while the cashier is already scanning my products. I get that it keeps someone employed but I think the answer to that is better welfare, not sticking to the old ways just so someone gets to do menial shit for a living.
At my grocery store I used to use the self checkout until they instituted a new policy where they would randomly check you and verify that the contents of the bag matched the receipt. Well fuck that, I ain’t gonna be treated like a criminal. I’m back to waiting in the line, let them do the work.
Is it a subscription based store, like a Costco?
If so, you signed up for the cart checks. The only thing you can do is not shop there.
If not, once you pay for it, it’s yours, and they have no legal right to touch it or check it unless you give them permission.
All you have to do is kindly say “no thank you” and keep walking. If they stop you, they’re violating other laws.
If they suspect you of theft, they can calls the cops. Otherwise, they must let you pass.The corpos and cops know the laws and, as such, your rights. It’s time we all know them, too, so we can put them (corpos and cops) all in their place on the ground.
I have thought about all of this at great length. The problem is that they can ban me from the store.
They can, but if they ban you for not allowing them to check, that’s illegal, and you can sue. If they ban you for theft, they need the cops to prove it.
Keep in mind, you must be kind when you refuse. A nice smile and kind “no thank you” is enough. If you’re combative, they can ban you for that. If they’re dicks that ban for the sake of banning, fuck em
At mine there’s one cashier who’s an absolute delight which serves as such a stark contrast to the self checkout that accuses me of stealing regularly and is very hesitant to actually scan some items. Add in that cashiers are faster and I can pay while they scan and it’s just a better experience unless the line is crazy and I don’t have many items
Yeah that’s pretty shitty in that case I’d also use the regular checkout
Lol, the only place I’m letting them check my work is Costco. I don’t even take my receipt from the machine at other places, and have told employees on more than one occasion that they can go get my receipt from the machine or go check with LP and keep walking.
They can’t legally stop you, so I’m not playing their games.
They can ban you from the store.
Is it a membership store? If not, they would need to have a posted policy that you’re required to follow for that to be a real threat.
The drone at the front of the store is not allowed to do more than request to see your receipt, and playing off that you can’t hear them is also a good option I’ve used in the past when they try.
I think a balance is good.
I worked at Target a long time ago as a Front End manager, before the days of self checkout. So I know how to cashier quickly and efficiently, and I get annoyed shopping at other places where the employees or customers are being slow.
I also appreciate just how volatile needs can be and how difficult it can be to staff. There have been books written on the subject, but in short for large stores with a lot of volume, customers do not usually trickle into checkout constantly as one might expect. Instead, they crash against the front of the store like waves. Personally when i’m shopping I try to identify these waves and time my checkout between them. At Target, we would often only have a couple of dedicated cahsiers, and would call the cart attendant or floor employees to help out for these waves. Self-checkout helps to smooth this out a lot and reduces all that walking back-and-forth.
I also hated all the upselling they made cashiers do. Target credit/debit cards and extended warranties on electronics. As an employee it was obnoxious and felt like we were annoying customers. As a customer, I was annoyed. One of my complaints about self-checkout today is how they ask you so many questions. My local grocery store self-checkout requires 5 button presses after i’m done scanning, which i think is bad design.
But also sometimes people need help. Some products are more complicated to buy. Some people are disable. Coupons are a plague upon society which machines are incapable of addressing. Some people just plain want a social experience, and it’s good to have human employees standing around in general. So I like the idea of having a mix.
And, of course, Universal Basic Income so we can stop asking “but what about jobs?” about every new innovation (but fuck AI though).
I agree, I have nothing against both being an option. In my bubble, everyone pretty much uses self checkout exclusively whenever available, except maybe for a large haul, so I was surprised to see how many in the comments actively dislike it.
That part about waves is interesting, it’s absolutely true and it happens all the time but I never really thought about it.
I started as a cart attendant, so I noticed that cars entering the parking lot would usually correspond with the traffic lights nearby. Pretty simple and straightforward.
What’s weirder is that most people exit in groups. Maybe not the same group they came in with. Some people might need to go Guest Services for a return. Some people would stop at Food Ave for a snack. Some used the restaurant. Some would peruse softlines (clothing) for an hour or two with multiple trips to the fitting room. Some would go straight back to the pharmacy for their meds. Some families would come in and split up. And there would be the occasional straggler checking out on their own, but there was an overwhelming tendency for several parties to all check out at once. Then they would form their own traffic leaving the parking lot.
I think some of it is subliminal. Once one group starts to check out, that starts to put the beeps of the register, the hum of the convertor belt, the clatter of items being moved, and the rehearsed conversations of a transaction to float through the air of the front of the store. My hypothesis is that customers shopping in the front who were close to done would have their decision to check out accelerated by this.
Some of it could be the result of all of the other psychological manipulation that happens in retail stores. That is a whole science of its own that I am only vaguely aware exists, but it is very likely that a contributing factor too.
Or it could be emergent from human behavior. For example, studies have shown that people will commute ~1hr max to/from work (I can’t remember the exact number, it might have been closer to 45 minutes). Doesn’t matter if they are walking, riding a horse, rowing a boat, driving a car, taking a bus, taking a train, or any combination. Once the time starts to exceed that amount, people either look for a new job or new home, and this has had an impact on the way that neighborhoods and cities grow over time.
Using a cashier to me is easier, and I like talking to the person ringing my stuff.
I’m honestly surprised anyone likes self checkout. It’s such a pain in the ass. Almost always have some sort of error that I need to wait to be rescued from.
Maybe it’s different where you are from, but where I am from human cashiers are way more efficient.
I like self checkout because i can generally get finished and out of the store sooner than if I go through the cashier. But some grocery checkouts do seem to often have hypersensitive scales and the worst nagging if you’re 2 ms slow to get your item into your bag, or God forbid you take a moment to rearrange things and mess up the calibration. I imagine they have a terrible urge to prevent people from stealing a grape.
It depends on the technology. In Holland it’s great. In Belgium it sucks ass. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Totally depends on the store you’re shopping at, foremost. Then secondarily what products you’re buying.
Where I live, self checkout is usually faster but I’ll still go through a regular line periodically. Frankly though I’m just picking up groceries most of the time at this point. It’s easy and if the people grabbing you things have a touch of empathy you get fine looking produce and meats too.
Anyways, you’re right it is definitely heavily dependent on where you live. Hell some places, especially in upper middle class areas, have a lot of the detection shit turned off (like you can actively put wrong weight stuff in or bypass the scans entirely - there’s a chance you may still get flagged but it’ll let you finish the order up before someone comes to put a code in to override it).
I guess if you’re going to commit petty theft I’d suggest you buy a decent outfit from a second hand store and go to a nicer grocery store self checkout.
They could have saved so much time and money by just paying the cashiers a living wage.
Hmm I like self checkout because I don’t like dealing with retail people. I’m introverted by nature.
Just get me the F in and get me the F out. Charge the correct price and give me correct change. Machines do this SO WELL.
.
Another upgrade is that usually all retirees come out of their houses to shop at 11 - 14:00 to shop groceries (same time as employees are getting out for lunch).
The self checkouts are smaller and usally only used by the ones that have small number of items.
And the seniors usually tend to go to the cashiers anyway.
They can jumble with their change while I do not have to wait two eons to finally get out of the shop and back to the office.Realistically the golden oldies still slow everything down, I’m usually buying at least an energy drink which locks it down until you’ve shown you’re not bloody sixteen. Given how understaffed the shops are, that’s not getting unlocked until Doris or Nigel has finished with their basket.
I think the only locked down items where I live are alcohol (and probably media that is age restricted for +12).
Side note:
What I observed in a franchise supermarket:
Shop A: Near a substance abuse help center
Shop B: Outskirts of my hometown (The area would peobably called suburban in the US. But there are some industrial, multi-family homes and mixed single houses. So not a classic house to house with garden area like stereotypical. Town is in Germany).Both stock the “Bombay Saphire Gin”.
Shop A: Locked and needs an employee to open the case
Shop B: Open to grab.Quite insightful how the area influcences the item presentation and (unrestricted) access.
Yeah I noticed this, moved from a semi-rural area to a city centre and stuff is way more locked down against shoplifters.
man age checks on energy drinks must suck, we don’t habe that here or I likely would dislike doing self check a little as well.
I would still do it because its defo faster but it might cause me to at least potentially think about it
Yeah it’s a pain in the arse, I’m old enough to feel complimented when I get challenge 25’d but for energy drinks it’s just annoying.
Seriously: if they take away our self checkout, we riot.
Until the machine needs to verify an alcohol purchase…
The one person managing 10 lanes walks over and types in your age. Works pretty well in my experience.
Lucky you, she walked by me 10 times while talking to 15 other staff.
Bro, you can just drink thr alcohol before buying.
I’m on the same boat.
I think this weird anti-self-checkout crowd is just young people who don’t remember the times before self-checkouts. Even if every checkout was manned it was still completely normal to wait upwards of ten minutes, even when it wasn’t that busy. I remember my Mum excitedly running to a checkout because there was only one person queueing there. Nowadays I totally expect there to be no queue at all and I feel hard done by if I have to queue for more than one minute.
I’m over 50 but the queue has to be huge for me to go to self-checkout.
I do not enjoy waiting for someone to come and check if im stealing. I do not enjoy waiting for a go-ahead for goods that are age restricted. I do not enjoy doing unpaid work (wheres my rebate??)
Also - I think cashiers deserve a job.
Same, and exactly all of this. If they want me to do the work that they usually pay someone for, they better offer me a significant discount.
I worked in grocery stores as a teen and I just want that to remain available.
I also do not like the self checkout machine. They have an unacceptable number of steps to pay. They’re horribly programmed. I don’t like the small baggage areas.
I think this weird anti-self-checkout crowd is just young people who don’t remember the times before self-checkouts.
What crowd? As far as I can see, the article is talking about retailers who want to do this, not customers.
Boomers still line up at the cashier and will wait 15 minutes when self checkout is empty. But they also buy loto tickets and cigs.
The Aldi by me went self checkout. They lost enough business because of it they brought back cashiers. I definitely stopped going because of how clunky it was. The couple times I went I used the single cashier that had a line instead of self checkout which did not.
This seems very US coded. In euro they’re doubling down even with self scan on the phone or with a tool they give me. I scan them as I put them in my cart and at checkout I just pay and leave. It’s awesome.
I see a trend of completely automated supermarkets.
You scan your card to walk in. The automated system scans the products you take. And you pay in order to leave.
It works pretty well, and is 24/7. You can be entirely alone in that store. And if you need someone there is a phone to a callcenter.
One problem your forget to foresee: people will leave shit about, leave products outside of freezers, and misplace things. It needs employees
I have a smart cart at my local grocery store that adds the products to my account. I just pass through payment, no need for scanning anymore. Love it.
The cart alsof weighs my products so I only have to scan one barcode. It multiplies by itself.
I’m learning a lot in this thread about European dystopia. I guess if y’all like it to each their own. Over here in the US, we’ve had enough.
The thing is, where I live the system works well. It doesn’t make UX choices that make it hard to use, assuming that people are stealing all the time. It’s fast and easy, although so are the human manned checkouts, which also exist and are fine.
Have they tried adding AI? 3D printing? Quantum computing? Space based solar power?
I don’t think so but CVS and Walgreens installed digital cooler doors so you can see whats in stock before you open the door. Apparently you couldn’t do that before when the doors were 100% transparent glass that didn’t use extra electricity.
Ah, technology. I hope they upgrade to an 8K60 screen?
AI, yes.
Once got flagged for theft because the camera saw me put a box down on the far side of the scanner and then used the handheld scanner because it was large. Evidently the box getting past the fixed scanner without scanning triggers theft even if you scan it.
In a convenience store, I put products on a platform and I don’t have to scan barcode and it just “scans” my whole order all at once with machine vision. It worked well for me, but seems to have the clerk on high alert to watch it like a hawk from any mistakes, which sounds exhausting. I got the sense that it screws up a lot and the clerk is on the hook for it.
Morrison’s (UK) has something called “vision security” which triggers if the machine learning model thinks you haven’t scanned something, the worker then has to watch the video and verify. It kept triggering on me because I often put my bike helmet in the cart. But it’s easy to place the cart slightly away from the camera and then it won’t see.
New store near me has problems with the scales, it charged me $0.07 for four bananas. Luckily nothing really checks for coherency.
No blockchain? Wait blockchain isn’t passe already is it?
No. Yes. Yes. No.
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 like it because I don’t have to talk to people. It is otherwise an inferior experience.
Agree. But what is the “otherwise” part you’re taking about?
What other commenters have said: you’re not as good as the professional.
As good as in what? Lifting items over the scanner fast? Because yeah, I am. I go shopping there 2-3 times a week, I know where the bar-code is on all the items I regularly buy, I can scan them just as fast as any professional, probably faster. Some of them are old ladies … And not sure what other quality other than speed there is to scanning your items.
You and some other commenters are super special. Better than the average.
I really don’t see what’s so special about it.
There is nothing special about it, that’s the point. But for some people, it can be important. What if you have a visual or physical disability? An intellectual issue? Etc.
I’m in no way suggesting that traditional checkout should be abolished.
You still need employees to help hapless customers and flag tech problems, the security cameras from above to dissuade theft, and someone to man the monitors of said cameras. They were banking on full human replacement. Can’t wait for our AI future with a store devoid of employees where they drop a net from the ceiling and pepper spray me because I forgot my eggplant was the organic price.
Questionable savings? I have saved A LOT of time at self checkouts, especially when just buying a few things. It’s way faster than standing in line behind people seemingly doing their yearly shopping.
The supermarket I went to in the 90s boasted in their adverts about how if there were more than 3 people waiting in a lane they’d open another till. That’s how bad the general standard was.
The time saving is hugely illusory. You really should take your watch and measure. What costs most time at a staffed register checkout is mostly the payment. The staff scans much faster than you.
