- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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I really enjoy using the self checkout. I don’t have to talk to anyone, it’s faster than the employee scanning, and I bag my shit better and not have to worried about smashed bread or fragile items. It’s not for everybody and I get it but it leave it for the people do want to use them.
Man, I love the self checkout. Also didn’t they already show that rising costs everywhere WEREN’T from theft, but instead corporations artificially inflating their prices during the pandemic and then leaving it there?
Take away my self checkout, and I’ll steal out of spite
It’s fine if you have a few things and no one else is using them. These days, you go to the supermarket and you either wait in a long line for people to check out the stuff themselves or you wait on a long line for someone to do it for you. All they did was eliminate jobs.
All they did was eliminate jobs
That’s awesome. Jobs suck. Nobody likes jobs. We should automate even more things so people don’t have to do work.
I agree with you in principle, but we still have money and bills to deal with. Which also suck, but we still need money for the bills and the nice things we want in life. So we need jobs. Unfortunately.
Humans survived for millions of years without jobs. I am doubtful that we actually need them.
That’s great once we’ve got a UBI or can ditch capitalism entirely, but until then it just means fewer jobs for those that need them.
“Nightmare” says you. “The only thing that makes grocery store checkout tolerable” says I. I’ll wait longer for a self-checkout rather than subject myself to a human who will try to make conversation with me (which forces me to take out my earbuds), be annoyed by the fact that I want to use my own bags, underload my bags, take forever, ask me required scripted questions, and put the bread underneath a can.
Frankly this is one of the most disheartening editorials I’ve ever read on Gizmodo. “Cumbersome?” “Confusing?” “Error-prone?” “Terminator?” “Frustrations?” “Wasted time?” Just say you don’t understand how to use them and have no intention to learn. Weird flex for a tech journalist.
It literally ends with the sentence, “It turns out human beings might still have something to offer.” I hated the entire article.
Yeah, aside from the factual inaccuracies and the axe-grinding so obvious that it may as well be classified as an op-ed, it’s so smugly sanctimonious.
“67% of people prefer self-checkout, but based on no data, that’s probably changing, because we think it should and probably a lot of people are upset about the stealing that isn’t really happening!”
Don’t forget the part about how “67% of people prefer this thing, but all companies are quitting that thing because of a lie they cooked up to convince people to accept price gouging.”
The only people upset about the “stealing” are the companies that let it happen.
Said this the other day - 30 years ago I worked retail, our security would detain you in a secure office with cameras, and let the police handle you.
Every security shift had at least one cop working security as a second job, or were retired cops.
These companies stopped detaining shoplifters because their insurance gave them a deal not to. Well, then they don’t get to complain about theft.
Self-checkout likely has little bearing, since the systems use scales, have an attendant watching, and use cameras on your face and the checkout itself.
I smell a lot of bullshit. There’s no way the vendors of these systems didn’t address all this stuff before deploying them - otherwise they could be held contractually liable for failures. No way vendor security leadership, nor the grocery chain security leadership let these systems go out without addressing these concerns.
Also:
they actually increase labor costs thanks to employees who get taken away from their other duties
Big retailers would love to give hard working people’s jobs to robots, and in many cases they already have.
How on Earth did an editor allow an article containing both of those sentences, only two paragraphs apart, to be published?
They’re correct though? Retailers expected them to be able to get rid of employees, but they didn’t and in fact increased the cost of employees.
Lol, not by my observation.
Every store in my city that installed these systems reduced checkout staff by 75-90% (in the checkout lanes). Walmart, grocery stores, you name it. I bet if we pulled some stats we’d see a major drop in hours, which means a huge drop in insurance, taxes, HR overhead, etc, etc. No matter how much labor rates went up (they didn’t), those cost reductions are massive in comparison.
Just consider their software contracts - systems are often licensed/supported at rates determined by scale: transactions per minute, # of objects being stored, etc. If there’s an HR system that handles hours, scheduling, pay, etc, etc, they likely pay annually for a system scaled to employee count (it’s BS, but it’s a metric companies use). Drop your employees by 75%, and on support contract renewal you can drop to a lower tier support. Source: I’ve been responsible for doing just this - reducing footprint so we can reduce support contract costs. I’ve save my company somewhere between $70 and $90 mil on one system this way. Not for HR, but it doesn’t matter, this is often how support contracts are done in the enterprise world.
I have two grocery stores that had 6 lanes staffed at busy times. Since they installed self checkout, there are two… TWO checkout staff. That’s a 33% reduction during rush hour. And for off hours they’d have 2, maybe 3. That’s now 1 or two. That’s 50% or 66% reduction, depending.
It’s not like grocery checkout attendants do much more than that - shelves are stocked by the vendors themselves, maintenance by others (Walmart is retail, so different).
I never see more than 2 or 3 checkout attendants these days, some stores have even removed the “extra” checkout lanes, so they couldn’t even bring people back in if they wanted to.
And let’s not get started on other retail chains, which can be even worse.
The author of this article is speaking out of both sides of their mouth, though. The context of the first statement is “they want to reduce staff and it’s not even working!” and the context of the second statement is “they want to reduce staff and in many cases it’s working!”
If the author intended to say what you said, they should’ve said that instead of trying to have their cake and eat it too. Either it’s a bad thing for labor, taking away human jobs, or it’s a bad thing for companies, requiring more workers to do the same job. Or it’s a bad thing for consumers, because companies should need more workers but aren’t. But the author needs to make one of those points, not simply suggest all three at once.
If you read the article they are only a “nightmare” for big box retailers who are crying about theft. I love the self checkout and generally use it every time unless I have a specific reason not to
Who would have guessed that when you let the clients check themselves out they are going to miss scanning some items? It’s not like they are trained or paid to be employees and of course their motivation is to scan less not more.
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I actively choose to shop at stores that have self-checkout because they have self-checkout. I don’t know why the author is writing as if everybody hates them.
I agree. Boomers hate them though.
I’m a millennial, and I will abandon my basket 99% of the time when there’s not a staffed cashier lane available, especially if I’m trying to buy more than 2 items.
I actually tried to use the self-checkout at the airport recently when I was buying a single bottle of water, and the cashier jumped in almost immediately to assist anyway. I forget exactly what happened, but it was definitely overly complicated compared to the staffed checkout that I used at the same shop the previous time I flew through that airport.
Boomers are far from the only ones who dislike self-checkouts.
Nah, they are boomers too. Boomer is a state of mind.
Please, no. It’s my jam.
Oh wait, it’s for self checkout. Not self scanning.
I love self checkout
It’s so much faster than waiting in line to pay and I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to
YMMV wildly. Walmart of all places generally has a good ratio of self checkout to actual cashiers, but there’s this annoying trend with a lot of the local stores where they have only 4 self checkouts period but will only ever have one, maybe two other checkout lanes operating. Doesn’t matter if there’s a line stretching the full length of one of the grocery aisles, 2 non-self checkout lanes and that’s it.
In Sweden we have had a version of self checkout for 20 years in the largest stores, and here it seems to work fine.
Instead of having to scan everything at a station, each product is scanned with a handscanner when walking through the store, and put directly into shopping bags. Then only the payment and possibly a randomly occuring verification is left before leaving the store.
The random testing is usually just an employee scanning three to five items from your bags, and occurs like once every four months (as long as you’re not actually stealing and caught).
We have that at a grocery store in my area, though you use an app on your phone to scan with the camera and the “random testing” seems to happen pretty much every time. If I had one of their scanners instead of their laggy app, I’d be much happier. (Though I guess modern handscanners are Android devices with a laser, so maybe not that much better…)
The best thing is when you’ve been doing it for so long that the random checks happen, like, once a year. I actually don’t think we’ve had one since before the pandemic.
I despise Fry’s Electronics but they got manned checkout correct. A single fucking queue sharing all the resources (cashiers). Like at a bank. Having to pick & guess which mini-queue would go faster always gave me anxiety. And the “less than 15 items” queue was not always quicker.
Self checkout, in lots of cases, brings grocery checkout to a single queue, and for that reason, I welcome it. Obviously, stores that forcing people to pick self-checkout mini queues should be burned to the ground
A few stores, in my area it’s particularly clothing discounters, seem to have moved to that model, and as long as you plan your checkout areas even sort of halfway well, it’s a million times better.
And god what a sad death Fry’s had. It went from the bona fide nerd store to a disaster. Eventually the ones in Dallas-Fort Worth were just zombie husks riding out the leases and selling leftovers on consignment from the few manufacturers who couldn’t be bothered to come repossess the inventory after the store failed to pay their invoices.
Just as a mildly interesting story, I thought I’d share:
The best self checkout experience I had so far, was at a Japanese clothing store in Germany. There was a box at the checkout station, and each clothing item had an RFID in their labels. You just toss all your items in the box, it detects which exact products you’re gonna buy, and if the list of items shown is correct, you just pay and go.
A few years ago I heard of a similar concept for groceries, but that one was experimental and I don’t think they’ve implemented it ever since. But this one at the clothing store was not a test, and it worked flawlessly.
I like the idea for groceries, but how do you do produce?
Look into Amazon fresh stores. They have that concept. You just place the item in the cart and it shows you the list of items you have in the cart while at the store. After that I think you just go to the register and it chargers your Amazon account.
But how do you do it with produce? Say you want to buy three apples. I can get that it could figure out amount with a scale, but how does it know you’ve bought apples?
That one you would type the produce cause it could tell it was produce. Only been once so I don’t remember how it calculated the weight.
Got it. Thanks.
Just came back from a trip to Japan and that’s how they do clothes. Drop everything on a basket, pay and leave. The staff is super nice but you don’t have to talk to anyone at all if you don’t want to
Still, 60% of consumers said they prefer self-checkout as of 2021
Ah yes, the ‘Nightmare’ that a clear majority of people prefer.
This is yet more ‘wahhhh shoplifting’ bullshit from companies whose interests are directly opposed to the interests of their customers.
People want self checkout to be less shit, which it easily could be. In Australia I didn’t even have to put things in the bagging area, just scan them. It made the whole process so much smoother.
See, that sort of thing is why I hate supermarket self-checkout. Other places it can be fine, but unless I’m doing the old ‘ten items or less’ thing and it’s an off-peak time, there’s a big line at the self-checkout. It’s a toss-up whether self-checkout or going to one of the two checkout lanes they have open with people on them is faster at this point, which basically means I’m subsidizing the company by doing what an employee could do more efficiently and everything would be a lot faster if they just opened up more human lanes.
You think they’re going to spend more money on the biggest money sink in a business, humans? They’ll do away with self checkout and not increase their cashier count, maybe even decrease it, because if they get rid it of it, it’s a cost saving move, not a customer satisfaction one.
I’m sure you’re right. Anything to save money and increase revenue.
You’re always subsidizing a company by shopping there though right?
I usually find that the self checkout line moves faster, but choosing a line had always been a guessing game.
I need to buy groceries.
I don’t need to support replacing humans with shitty robots.
If you want to talk about shitty robots, grocery stores have shitty robots. The thing can only wander around and look for spills and stuff, and then it just beeps and an employee has to come clean it up.
Basically they automated the assistant manager position.
The BBC article that this article is a bizarre summary of is far better (the Gizmodo article even links directly to the BBC article). It give a far better overview of the issues; the main crux is they cost most than anticipated through both theft and cost of the machines themselves. The consumer’s disliking it is a less point and more naunced essentially “customer’s want the technology to work but it isn’t” which is also what you’ve said.
Personally I preferred the self checkouts because I don’t want to interact with someone, but th they fail so much (because of the weighing which is to stop me being a supposed thieving scumbag, not to benefit me) and you end up standing around waving at a random stranger to come and fix the machine awkwardly while a massive queue waits impatiently for a machine. I’ve recently switched back to the manned checkouts for bigger shopping trips.
They expect me to do free labor for a huge evil corporation, but give me a scanner far worse than they give their paid employees, which scolds me every 10 seconds for not having enough space to put things.
They expect me to do free labor
I’m pretty sure people were complaining about this when supermarkets replaced greengrocers. “What do you mean I can’t just hand a list to the clerk and have him package up my groceries? They expect me to do free labor?” But we kept it around because the convenience was worth it.
for a huge evil corporation,
The smaller evil corporations use them too.
but give me a scanner far worse than they give their paid employees,
I don’t know where you’re going, but at the grocery stores I go to (and the one I used to work at) the scanner is literally the same unit as on the checkout the human is operating because that way it’s easier and cheaper to keep parts on hand to fix them.
which scolds me every 10 seconds for not having enough space to put things.
HONESTLY this is like the ONLY JOKE people have about self-checkouts. You could joke about the thing always being out of bags, or having trouble when you’re trying to buy alcohol, or flagging down an attendant when the thing doesn’t have a barcode, and yet everyone chooses “unexpected item in the bagging area,” which hasn’t been a problem for people who actually know how to use the thing for a decade or more? Why is this the mindvirus that has infiltrated everyone and not, like, social equity?
I’m not making a joke.
It’s a terrible design and these should all be scrapped until they make ones that don’t suck.
I haven’t had trouble with this or seen anyone who has in probably a decade. They already have made ones that don’t suck. (As much, to be fair)
Now you’re just making shit up.
I simply won’t use them if there is cashier available.
I’m not your fucking employee & prices never once came down due to their prevalence.
Still, 60% of consumers said they prefer self-checkout as of 2021
And it’s fucking weird how vocal and entitled some of the 35% are in wanting the majority’s preference to go away because they don’t like it.
AGREED. Why does the “unexpected item in the bagging area” joke still get a laugh? My 9-year-old doesn’t remember a time when that was a legitimate problem.
Meijer is the only one that has their self checkout figured out. 2 different sections in my store with 10-12 checkout stations. So a minimum of 20 self check out stations open and they’re always open and working. They never give me the errors like Walmart and Kroger.
Walmart might have 20 checkouts as well but half aren’t working or open plus there’s 3x the people at Walmart so there’s usually a 15 minute wait.
Kroger is the worst with the errors. They might have 20 checkout stations but 5 might be open.
Going to Walmart or Kroger is always a hassle. I avoid those 2 unless I need one or two items.
Aldis and Meijer are my go to.
This must be location dependent (and time). I have multiple Walmart and grocery store chains nearby, and the worst I ever see is one Walmart may sometimes have a line at self checkout… But I usually know by how full the parking lot is.
One grocery store never has a line, one grocery store does occasionally at rush hour (both the same chain, about 5 miles apart).
Unfortunately, Kroger and Walmart are a 5-minute drive for us and Meijer would be a 30-minute drive, so we’re sort of stuck with Kroger and Walmart.
Our Meijer is quite a bit further away too. If we’re out in the area already we’ll stop by and do a bigger trip. I could put up with the nonsense at Kroger if their damn prices weren’t so ridiculous. Kroger is by far the closest but they’re by far the most expensive for me anyway
