There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

plz1 ,

Their intent was to cut jobs/costs. They worked as designed. The user experience being improved was never the real goal of these, both on the employee and customer side. I’m fine using them for a small number of items/one item, but if I’m going to buy a bunch of things or anything that requires special handling (alcohol), I just skip them. I also skip them if there’s no line at a human checkout because I don’t want to drive those folks out of jobs either.

Waldowal ,
@Waldowal@lemmy.world avatar

The article says the expected cost savings haven’t been realized because people steal stuff and generally suck at scanning & bagging their own groceries.

BearOfaTime ,

Hahaha, that’s awesome. I don’t believe it, but it is humorous.

Shoplifting was already an issue. Self checkout has scales to check what you’re bagging, and cameras. I simply don’t believe it’s caused a significant increase in theft, no matter how hard they try to claim it.

Further, any issues that stores have with theft/shoplifting is because they refuse to do anything about it. Thirty years ago we stopped shoplifters and took them to security where cameras recorded everything, and called the police to come pick em up. Hell, we usually had a cop on hand for this stuff, and much of security was staffed by cops/retired cops.

Fine, you’d rather let this be an insurance claim, then any issues you have with theft is no longer a concern to anyone, because clearly it’s not a concern to you (that is, the company).

People know they won’t be stopped/arrested. So there’s almost no risk to just walking out.

Waldowal ,
@Waldowal@lemmy.world avatar

Why would grocery stores lie that shoplifting happens more at self-checkout?

plz1 ,

Ah, the retail theft claim…

otp ,

I love self-checkouts.

But what I love even more is having one single line for all lanes. It’s ridiculous that customers have to guess which lane will move the fastest.

Making a single line is the best thing self-checkouts have introduced around here.

Also, if they won’t bag my stuff for me, then I might as well be at the self-checkout. And since they don’t offer plastic bags at most places around here, most don’t bag your stuff for you.

If there are multiple lines and they won’t bag my stuff, I’ll go somewhere else that has self-checkout.

sighofannoyance ,
@sighofannoyance@lemmy.world avatar

I love self-checkout, because I hate waiting in line.

NickwithaC ,
@NickwithaC@lemmy.world avatar

You would hate the self checkouts around here then.

Policy seems to be that if there isn’t a queue then they should shut off half of them to save power. So now there is a queue for the self checkouts.

twack ,

Also they just don’t staff the regular check out lines, so your choice is to leave and go to another store.

lemmyvore ,

Self-checkout does not make up for stupid people.

My personal favorites are the ones that scan everything, then start bagging everything, then start looking for their card in their handbag, shoulder bag, backpack, pockets etc.

riskable ,
@riskable@programming.dev avatar

My biggest complaint about self checkout at Walmart (specifically) is that I still have to wait in line! There’s 20-ish self checkout machines of which 15-20 will be working and like fucking forty regular checkout lanes with two cashiers working. So of course there’s going to be a long ass line for the self checkout!

It’s lane upon lane of wasted space. If you’re only ever going to have 3-4 people working then you should only have 3-4 non-self checkout lanes!

kurcatovium ,

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

tunetardis ,

I treat self-checkout as a game with 2 goals:

  1. Make it through the process without getting any help.
  2. Do it as fast as a trained cashier.

In a good season, my batting average for #1 might be .300, which would not be bad were the game baseball. As far as #2 is concerned, I have never come close. It’s like I throw 30 mph pitches. Things get real when I’m trying to look up bananas or something and the helper comes up behind me. “It’s 4198. Here, let me do it.” Thanks, I already lost #2 and you just made me lose #1…again.

RagingRobot ,

I think self checkout is a good way for stores to get more customers through faster but the stores seem to think they are a replacement for human cashiers and they are not at all. They are nice to have in addition to human cashiers.

numberfour002 ,

Personally, I don’t think the technology is a failure. It’s the implementation that’s the pain point.

I’m no fan of Walmart, but the local store has the lenient self checkout machines that don’t make you place and leave your items in the bagging area. And there’s a hand scanner for each machine. The hand scanner is pretty close to instant, so I can literally scan an entire cart full of items in under a minute (with caveats) and you don’t even have to take things out of the cart to scan them (with caveats). Sometimes there are hiccups and obviously some items are sold by weight, so that’ll slow things down.

But even with all that, the implementation is the pain point because they’ll only have 1 person running the machines, so if they have to run off to help a customer or multiple people need help at the same time, you just have to wait. Also, the particular store I go to shuts down half the machines ridiculously early in the evening. When the machines break, they stay broken for weeks or months. And they have some kind of ridiculous system where some of the machines are cash-only, some are card-only, but the majority will accept either – this adds to a lot of inefficiency because a lot of customers don’t know which machines are which and if you mess up and pick the wrong one then things get tied up while you wait for a cashier to come and transfer you over to a different one so you can pay.

The other big factor is that customers were trained on the old shitty style self checkouts where you had to scan each item one at a time, place it in the bagging area, leave it there until you pay, and if so much as a speck of dust landed in the bagging area or a piece of onion skin fell off, it would freeze up. So even with the new lenient hand scanners, people still do it the old and slow way.

Binthinkin ,

Realize that many elite schools are pay to win and these business failures make sense.

AnneBonny ,

Unstaffed tills were supposed to revolutionise shopping.

They were?

bstix ,

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.

bandwidthcrisis ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    bstix ,

    How are they tracking? I know it can easily be done with NFC tags, but I doubt they tag fresh produce like that?

    slumberlust ,

    It’s all cameras and ML face recognition.

    bstix ,

    I wonder how many people are needed to operate the system, and if the camera detection is really just an employee in an Asian call center.

    EngineerGaming ,
    @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    mlaga97 ,

    FYI, your purchases are already thoroughly tracked like that starting as soon as you walk in the store, app or not.

    r00ty Admin ,
    r00ty avatar

    I hate self-checkout. It's just annoying and a downgrade from an actual. cashier. I'll use it when I have to. But really it's just terrible.

    However, scan as you shop. That's just great. Put your bags in the trolley, scan and put it straight in the bag. Go to checkout machine, pay and your stuff is already bagged.

    DarthYoshiBoy ,
    @DarthYoshiBoy@kbin.social avatar

    This is the second article in the last month I've found here on the Fediverse pronouncing the death of self checkout and honestly I just don't see it. Most of the stores around me have only just recently expanded their self-checkout areas and I vastly prefer using it unless I've got more than 25 items.

    I'd honestly probably stop going to a store that decided to not allow me to check out on my own. Small talk and having to make a minimum wage worker suffer through it is just not something I want when I'm running to the store for a gallon of milk. I vastly prefer being able to throw in some earbuds, get my shopping, check out, and get out to having to interact with anyone while I'm just trying get my shit.

    ooli OP ,

    I am surprised too. Self checkout only intensified recently in my country. What is surprising is that the dislike seems to come from the corporate side. So it exist since 1990, and just now they realised they are loosing money on it. Pretty weird… But I’m all in on big corpo losing money because they didnt want to pay wages.

    Mark my word: they installed self-Passport machine in Paris airport in planning for the Olympic tourists grand arrivals. It will be a disaster!! It doesnt work, it is slower than having an human check your pass, and a lot of travelers will be very angry at thoses machines. Plus I suspected you can trick them easily if you’re a criminal

    gerryflap ,
    @gerryflap@feddit.nl avatar

    This is probably a difference between countries, but personally I love it here in the Netherlands. I go to the store after work multiple times a week and I have yet to encounter a queue or problem that stalled me longer than 1-2 minutes. Usually I can just directly walk to a self-checkout machine, check out my stuff, pay by holding my debit card (or phone) against the payment terminal, and be on my way. I like it way more than the old way of doing things, because I now have time to properly pack my bag and I don’t have to talk to anyone. It’s also way more space efficient. There’s even the option to take a scanner with you so you can scan while shopping, though I have yet to try that.

    Kusimulkku ,

    Yanks seems to have totally fucking bungled self-checkouts. Dunno how they managed that but almost every single complaint i hear is from them.

    Bishma ,
    @Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    I worked every position in a grocery store during high school and college. I am now unwilling to work any of them without being paid to do so. And my current rate is many multiples of what they pay their employees.

    xtr0n ,

    Same. And knowing that I have been an efficient cashier in the past makes the awkwardness of the self checkout super frustrating. If you have the items coming down the belt and are in a groove and so it regularly, you can get through a cart of items so fast. Between the poor UI and theft deterrence the self checkout is way slower.

    Ans what happens to the people whose jobs are eliminated by the self checkout? Yeah, it’s a crap job, I know, I’ve done it. But if the only alternative in our current system is more homelessness and absolutely desperate poverty then I’ll skip the self checkout. I’d love to live in the glorious future where machines do all the grunt work and people are free to spend their time in better ways. But it seems humanity can’t have nice things.

    Kusimulkku ,

    I wonder if this sentiment was common when the introduced the stores where you have to go and pick up the products instead of telling someone what you want.

    Bishma ,
    @Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Part of me wishes the old dry good / mercantile shops were still a thing in my area. I still make occasional trips to stand-alone butchers, bakeries, green grocers, florists, and delis but if I need shelf stable stuff my only choices are supermarkets or convenience stores.

    darganon ,

    We’re headed back that way with online ordering where they bring it to your car.

    Kusimulkku ,

    I’ve had them just deliver it to my home. Very handy if it wasn’t as expensive

    JoMiran ,
    @JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

    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

    ooli OP ,

    You go mate !

    trolske ,

    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.

    minibyte ,

    Corporate is cheating the system just to save a few bucks in wages. I see it as OP balancing the books.

    trolske ,

    I would have been more understanding if it was always on the level of two extra cans of soup or comparable.
    But 2 lbs of pine nuts is not balancing the scales, that’s abusing the system.

    TopRamenBinLaden ,

    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.

    trolske ,

    I mean I could understand (but not necessarily approve) if it would be a few everyday groceries here and there. But pine nuts? 2 lbs? Sorry, but that’s just ridiculous.
    I can completely understand if people have to steal food to make ends meet. It’s a tragedy that they have to do it, but it’s the system’s fault and not theirs.
    But OP doesn’t seem to fit into that category.

    TopRamenBinLaden ,

    To be honest, my uncivilized self doesn’t even know what a pine nut is, so if you say it’s a luxury item, I’ll take your word for it. In that case, I can agree that it’s a bit ridiculous and selfish. Still I wouldn’t call the cops or anything. If it was my friends or family I’d most definitely give them a hard time about it, though.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •