Do I get a discount for checking myself out? Unless it’s 1-2 items and the normal line is full - it is cashier every time for me.
Same. I will go to the cashier even when it’s somewhat inconvenient to me just because I despise the idea that the grocery store is making me be the cashier for free.
I mean, they’re also “making you” pick up your items off the shelf, just like the gas station “makes you” pump your own gas.
That’s why if something “fails” to scan or you input some produce at a cheaper price “on accident”, then it’s the store’s fault - you’re not a cashier, just a customer doing self-checkout.
What value does a real human provide you though?
They’re a skilled worker that has memorized the codes for the different types of potatoes, a skill I am unlikely to learn.
I guess it depends on the machine, but I don’t have to memorize codes. You can search for the item by name when it’s time to weigh it.
I find cashier lines to be too slow because of the socialization so I always go to the self checkouts.
A lot of old ladies will go to cashiers and have ridiculous questions and requests and you’re standing there with your 3 items dying inside.
@NathanielThomas @grte
So seniors with questions are the only persons slowing down check-outs???Sometimes the cashiers themselves are slow and scan items like they’re regretting every life decision they ever made.
What I love about selfcheckout is I go at my pace, as fast or slow as I want to be.
Sometimes the cashiers themselves are slow and scan items like they’re regretting every life decision they ever made.
Such a good description of my local cashiers’
You could always switch jobs with them for 2 weeks just to show them how it should be done.
I was working in fast food for a long time, it was more than enough for me, thank you.
But looks like good job to automate, let people do something better.
You mean like those no employee convenience stores?
I like the principal of it, but wonder how much extra work is involved in making sure all the products are properly tracked.
I’ve never seen a cashier who’s not a trainee who’s not faster than self checkout.
But that is the problem: when I go to a cashier I feel rushed to bag everything and pay in the time it takes a professional to scan everything. When I go to a self-checkout register, items are scanned exactly at the same rate that I bag them.
At the same time, there is hardly any waiting for self-checkout lines. In other words, for my taste they are better in almost every way.
As soon as groceries having dedicated baggers (or cashiers who bag stuff for you) ceased to be a thing, I felt that pressure too.
People that make stupid assumptions slow the lines more.
@sndmn
Good grief! I do not like waiting in lines either. But to say an employee who serves the public should not speak to that public is pretty absurd. And yes, there are fast and slow checkers, just like there is variation in us all.You know who always checks out my groceries exactly as fast as I want? Myself.
@baggins
Whatever makes you happy in your life……Not wasting my time waiting in checkout lines so I can act like some kind of social martyr does indeed make me happy.
There’s also the fact that you can have three self checkout terminals in the space of a single cashier. Even if it takes you twice as long as a cashier to cash out, you’ll be spending 50% less time in line for every cashier that’s been replaced with self checkout.
Nowadays, I only use self checkout as well, because I can get through it in less than 30 seconds, almost never any lines.
I like self-checkout especially when there’s lot of people and you have 1 or 2 items, it’s convenient, for me. But as written in the article, someone in need like this woman, needs a cashier lane. I’m not against self, but all stores should have at least one lane with cashier, always, for people in need.
Yes I agree I think having a mix of the two is best. Let the customers decide what they would like to use.
I’m a huge self checkout fan, but I think we need more perspective on how shitty ours is sometimes. Loblaws and all of them are way behind on how it should work. Look at the Netherlands and how it’s often done there, you walk around with a scanner so you can scan as you go and quickly pay at the end.
Or even better, look at how Uniqlo is doing it. It’s all RFID, so you just drop your basket on the checkout, and it scans it all for you basically instantly.
The problem isn’t self checkout, it’s that the grocery stores are using it to purely cut costs and don’t actually care if it’s better for the consumer in any way. But hey, at least it’s easy to “accidentally” not scan something right now.
Look at the Netherlands and how it’s often done there, you walk around with a scanner so you can scan as you go and quickly pay at the end.
Walmart and Sam’s Club have this with their Scan & Go app in the US. Scan the barcode with your phone, add it to your cart, pay from your phone, and someone at the door will scan a QR from your phone then scan a few random items in the cart and you’re done.
I pretty much wouldn’t shop at Sam’s if it didn’t exist. The checkout lines there have always been long and a pain. It cuts a ton of time standing around waiting in line out of a trip.
- argv_minus_one ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) 15•11 months ago
I don’t appreciate stores trying to force me to do the cashier’s job.
I also don’t appreciate them trying to pull the rug out from under the economy. If there’s one thing my country does not need, it’s millions more homeless people.
- EhForumUser ( @EhForumUser@lemmy.ca ) 4•11 months ago
I don’t appreciate stores trying to force me to do the cashier’s job.
But you don’t mind the fact that they have you doing the warehouse picker’s job?
I also don’t appreciate them trying to pull the rug out from under the economy. If there’s one thing my country does not need, it’s millions more homeless people.
And maybe the first millions wouldn’t be homeless if you weren’t so keen to take their warehouse picking jobs. Once upon a time it was a respectable profession. Why do you care so little about them?
- argv_minus_one ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) 5•11 months ago
Before I answer, first you need to explain what a warehouse picker is, because I’ve never heard of that before.
- EhForumUser ( @EhForumUser@lemmy.ca ) 4•11 months ago
The person who works in the warehouse to pick the items off the shelf when an order is placed. You know, the job you were conned into doing when you enter one of these warehouse-style stores that we are talking about.
It wasn’t always that way. Historically, you would place your order at the front counter and a diligent worker would work behind the scenes to gather your request. Some businesses still operate this way, to be sure, but it has largely gone the way of the dodo. It is generally more profitable when the customer does the work.
Yeah, and people are apparently not super pumped about being warehouse pickers either because online ordering is only going up.
- argv_minus_one ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) 4•11 months ago
Unless I’m mistaken, all online retailers of non-digital goods operate that way, so that job is far from extinct.
Maybe not extinct, but there was a definite bottleneck.
I don’t like self checkouts.
I don’t like fiddling with the thing, I don’t like how they lay the interface out (it’s designed to not be efficient, and there’s always so many clicks to pay), I don’t like entering vegetable UPC codes, I don’t like touching the screen 100 other people touched without it being cleaned, and I don’t like feeling like I’m being watched, and I don’t like context switching between scanning, choosing, and bagging.
I just want to load my items onto a belt, the cashier scans them and enters codes, then I bag them. I’ll simply say no to donating and tap my card and leave. Simple.
I love self checkout, at least when it’s implemented well.
As far as I can tell there isn’t a single one that isn’t a steaming pile of shit. Where have you found acceptable ones?
That said I’m against them because it reduces the employment that a business requires while pushing the work onto the customers. Unless they are giving me a discount for using the self checkout you are effectively being an employee for free for the store.
- EhForumUser ( @EhForumUser@lemmy.ca ) 15•11 months ago
you are effectively being an employee for free for the store.
You already accepted being an employee of the store when you decided to enter the warehouse to pick the items off the shelf yourself.
The only question is: Can you clock out faster if your co-worker helps you process the items you picked or will it be faster if you do it all by yourself?
My local store let’s me scan with my phone as I shop. When I get to the checkout I scan a QR code, it transfers everything to the register asks if I have anything else. Occasionally it’ll have someone come over and scan a few items to spot check, but not super often. Then I pay and leave.
Usually takes maybe 30 seconds to check out.
Just do what I do, steal the most expensive small thing in your cart as payment for doing the job.
As some other people have said, I like the ones where you can scan with your own device or a handheld one they provide. However, I don’t mind the regular ones where you scan everything at checkout either, though that’s definitely easier given that I live alone and in walking distance, so I don’t need to buy that many things at once. I should note that I mostly saw the scan as you go types in Europe, though a Metro store in Canada also had the portable scanners.
I try to do self checkout whenever i can. Cashier is one of the most soul crushing jobs, no one needs to be dealing with food shoppers
I’m the other way around, kind of for a similar reason. I like to use the regular cashier line, because it gives me the opportunity to interact with adult humans outside of my own house. And I take that opportunity to be as supportive and friendly as possible to those people, partly in order to help “uncrush their souls.”
Also, I don’t like fighting with trying to open the plastic grocery bags, and I’m too forgetful to remember to bring my own bags.
most of the time I dont want to be a captive audience even for someone trying to be friendly. I have to be polite, and Im at work, I cant just leave.
I try hard to relate to people sincerely and as a fellow human being, and not walk over that line between employee and customer. I totally understand that the person is just doing their job, and maybe just doesn’t want any more interaction than absolutely necessary. I like to tell quick dadjokes, at the very least, and I feel bad about kind of pressing one on someone who clearly did not want to be a part of my hijinks the other day. I did get a little smirk back, so it wasn’t all bad, but still.
On the other hand, for example, another recent shopping trip put me in a cashier line behind someone who was obviously being somewhat difficult to a clearly young cashier. After they cleared out, and after my transaction was complete, I made a point of saying to the young man, “You’re doing an excellent job, really. I felt you might have needed to hear that.” I wasn’t lying, he was being focused and patient, although some of his nervousness was still showing through. He thanked me, and said it was his first day solo on the register. “Well, you’re doing great,” and I departed.
I have many more experiences like the latter than the former, so I think my approach is doing good overall.
remember we’re comparing to self checkout. It’s not really a point to say you can cheer someone up after dealing with a rough customer, because neither of those experiences would happen with self checkout. They’re somewhere else they’d rather be, it’s a job that shouldn’t exist.
You’re right, and I completely agree that solely using self checkout would dramatically reduce unneccesary, and possibly stressful, customer interactions.
While there are certainly some people who, as employees, enjoy interacting with customers, and even some who enjoy resolving problems and conflicts for customers, I also understand that people who cashier at retail groceries are generally not empowered by management to exercise those kinds of skills.
I also agree with the sentiment that individual human cashiering is “a job that shouldn’t exist,” although maybe not so completely. There are always going to be transactions which require customer-employee interaction, because they fall outside the more rigidly programmed options available in self checkout. That said, I have watched as self checkouts have grown in both their number and their usage, as the number of employee operated cash registers seems to be declining. McDonald’s, for example, doesn’t even have cashiers standing at the ready at all times any more. You can go order from a person, at the sole register which exists for that purpose, but you will need to wait for a person to come to you instead of the other way around. Their kiosks and mobile app have made the “row of smiling cashiers awaiting your order” a thing of the past. And I think that level of “self-service” at retail establishments is a well balanced one.
You’re the reason I go to self checkout. You’re seeking out social interactions in a purely business relationship. I want my avocado and grapes and to get the fuck out of there, not stand there while you ask somebody how their day was and whether the weather might be getting cooler this weekend.
In your example, I’m the employee. In actuality, I am the customer. And I try to interact with everyone on a “we’re both people with lives and hopes and dreams” sort of basis, not in the banal “weather chat” kind of way.
@NathanielThomas @Nougat
So the only “social interaction” a grocery store check-out employee should have are the negative, abusive ones? If I chat pleasantly with a checkout person, I am interfering with your life? Hmmmm……
Are plastic bags still a thing anymore? I think Ontario banned them, cause I haven’t seen them anywhere. It’s especially awkward if you use Instacart cause they just keep giving you need reusable bags every time. But even before this, they’ve been dwindling for ages, with lots of big chains no longer having em.
Oh I forgot this was /canada - I’m in Illinois, outside Chicago. Cheap plastic shopping bags as far as the eye can see.
This commercial was made at least 17 years ago. This is what we need. We have the technology. We just need the price to come down.
I don’t mind there being a self-checkout, but for the love of everything good in this world, these companies need to stop asking 21 questions when you use one! “Do you want to apply to a credit card?”, “Do you want to donate?”, “Did you want a receipt emailed?”, “Did you want to fill out a survey?”, “How many bags did you use?”, etc.
And if it’s a self-checkout at Walmart, expect to have 10 available, but only 2 working and three staff overlooking them…
Ironically, the local Walmart has been closing them all later in the day so that people must use cashier’s, presumably due to increased theft etc
At the self-checkout at the Walmart near me a little man would go around asking if we want to save on groceries by signing up for their credit card.
The fourth or fifth trip there that he did this I had to get a bit ruder until he finally grabbed the self-checkout and clicked the credit card opt-in and I had to tell him to fuck off. He acted shocked but dude I go to self-checkout to avoid human interaction, not be sold a bullshit credit card only a teenager would fall for.
Most self-checkouts range from mildly annoying to downright unusable. Except Home Depot. Home Depot self checkouts are wonderful.
Walmart ones here generally work ok, the worst seem to be Dollarama which bitch at you about everything. Like this piece of tissue I bought didn’t weight properly so now I have to wait for an employee every other item.
I don’t mind self-checkouts, though I will admit most of those systems are utter garbage. What I hate is a worker telling you that “hey the self-checkouts are open here”. If I wanted to do self-checkout I wouldn’t be waiting in that line. Had some even bait saying “i’ll serve you here, but then they just lead you to self-checkout”. Their managers should be fired.
If I have just a handful of items it’s convenient. But one in 20 times I seem to find a way to screw it up - like trying to scan the loyalty card as an item…
Any more than 8 items I’d rather just use a cashier to scan the items for me. But places (like shoppers) don’t make it easy at all.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
CBC News interviewed several people who said during recent visits to major retailers, they were frustrated to find cashiers weren’t available — only self-checkout.
Valcov says he stopped shopping at his local Canadian Tire in June, following several store visits where only the self-checkouts were open and no staff members were available to help him.
VideoMining, a U.S. market research company, analyzed shoppers’ checkout habits during 1.2 billion trips to more than 1,000 U.S. grocery stores in 2022.
Sharma says retailers like self-checkout because it reduces labour costs, and that customers are increasingly drawn to the machines to avoid long lines at the cash register.
Retailer Loblaw, which owns pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart, says its policy is to offer customers both self-checkout and cashier options at all times.
In an email to CBC News, Loblaw offered Rayman and Winterburn an apology, and said that it has contacted their local stores to resolve the problem.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Maybe it’s just me, but everytime I use a self checkout I end up doing something wrong and have to wait for an attendant to help me. I usually try to just skip the first few steps and just go right to the cashier.
